


A World of Burning Flames

by beneathyourbravery



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Angst, Background Relationships, Crimes & Criminals, Enemies to Lovers, Lovers to enemies to lovers, M/M, POV Alternating, Second Chances, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28918059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery
Summary: “I’m assembling a team,” Johnny says when he’s finally standing in front of him, and his eyes catch Taeyong in the bottomless trap that they are.“A team?” Taeyong scoffs, despite the way his chest tightens at the closeness, the reminder of all the things he lost—what they lost, what they gave up for a life they chose but never really learnt to love, “What, like the Avengers? Are you Captain America or something now?”
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82
Collections: Johnny Fic Fest: Round Two





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the amazing [Johnny Fic Fest Round Two](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/johnnyficfest_roundtwo), in response to prompt #JS108, and also my first time writing Johnny and Taeyong.
> 
> Hope you'll enjoy!!! <3

The night is quiet and cold and humid, and its darkness wraps itself tight around him like a veil. The only sounds he can hear amidst the silent chaos are those of his panting breaths as he runs, footsteps getting closer, fear climbing up his throat and threatening to make him choke.

There’s dirt seeping through Taeyong’s lips the moment he’s tackled to the ground by three men much bigger, much broader than him, and he barely manages to spit it out before he’s being lifted up again by a harsh grip on the hair at the nape of his neck. The resistant, elastic fabric of his favorite pair of black tights tears as his knees are scraped against asphalt, blood dripping where skin is torn open by the motion, and a small cry makes its way past his gritted teeth.

“We’ve got him,” one of the men speaks into his radio, and Taeyong finds his arms being twisted and cuffed together behind his back.

“Fuck off,” he hisses, squirming in the agent’s grip as he tries to elbow him on the stomach—and he should know better, for he’s escaped situations worse than this one a million times, but his mind is still sort of numb after the shock of being caught and his racing heart steals his attention from any possible strategy he could pull off right now.

The cold metal barrel of a gun is pressed to his temple, then—a stark contrast to the way his skin is burning up with the effort of running across rooftops and down fire escapes, even though there were no sirens, even though he’d had the Busan Police HQ’s movements be tracked down on his phone so there would be no need to get to this point.

Belatedly, Taeyong realises that it’s not the police he’s dealing with tonight.

“Don’t you dare move a single muscle, you fucking bitch,” is hissed into his ear; another shove, another pull, Taeyong’s cries of pain as he’s brought back down to his marred knees, his face squeezed by coarse fingers and rough hands.

He spits at the man’s face when he tilts his head to the side, as if he were examining him—verifying his identity, _Lee Taeyong, most wanted fugitive by the Government of South Korea for acting as an agent of a foreign Government; multiple assassinations on his behalf; conspiracy; fraud_. Taeyong’s got it all written down on his phone notes, a friendly reminder of his lifetime legacy.

The man reels back for a second; the gun is shoved harder against Taeyong’s temple, and he believes it to be the end—he’s going to be shot dead in a backstreet in Busan, no witnesses to demand justice for him, no one to reclaim his corpse.

Instead, he’s met with a wet cloth being pressed to his nose and his mouth, the grip on his hair making him unable to squirm. _Chloroform_ , Taeyong’s mind supplies on the last second, and then everything is fading into pitch black.

End of the movie, _c’est fini_ , fin.

***

University is nothing like Johnny had believed it would be.

And really, it’s not like he’d had many expectations before it started, because he’s seen his older friends losing their minds over endless assignments and impossible deadlines for long enough to know better than to think it would be an easy ride, but—honestly. Even in his ever non-romanticised dream of being a college student, Johnny’s idea of attending university far from home involved much more drinking and partying and even _cramming_ in the library, and _definitely_ much less working torturous shifts at the cafeteria down campus and struggling to buy the most basic groceries by the end of the month.

Then again, in the friends and the books and the movies where he’d had a glimpse of college life before his turn came, the protagonist had not once had the struggle to pay rent be the main point of his plot development. 

The college dorms for foreigners where parties go down every other day of the week? Johnny would’ve loved to be there; in another life, maybe, where he’s got parents with enough money to support that kind of lifestyle. Crazy improvised roadtrips with friends on weeks where there’s no study to be done? His shifts at the cafeteria don’t think so. Travel to his friends’ hometowns during summer? Sure, if they take him in their car or it is close enough for a cheap train or bus ride. Johnny could barely afford to go back to Chicago when his first year of uni was done, and really, he still needs to save for rent the next year.

So yeah, Johnny’s college experience turns out to be nothing like the movies made him think it would be, but hey, that doesn’t mean it is _bad_. He makes friends—very good friends, at that, and they make it all worth it: taking double shifts at the cafeteria so he can stay in Korea until he finishes his degree, at least, for a better chance than what’s waiting for him back home; studying harder than he ever thought he would, so he’ll get the scholarship he so badly needs, so he won’t disappoint his family that’s supportive of his every decision even if it seems crazy at a first glance.

He’d known what he was signing up for when he decided to go to South Korea, his parents making sure he knew how things would have to be, because there was no other way. Johnny would have to take care of his expenses, even if they’d do anything in their hands to help him; and he’d understood—he wanted to make it, wanted to gain a better life for his family and himself, even if the start of it was far from the home he’d always known.

And so Johnny moved to Seoul to pursue a degree in Business Administration that he’s never been too fond of in the first place, found a shared apartment with a rent not too out of his reach and started working all the shifts he could at one of the most concurred cafeterias down campus, and life went on even if he struggled with it sometimes.

Some nights, though, the world would come crumbling down around Johnny when he got into bed after a particularly rough day—a ridiculous amount of essays to be written and projects to be done, and too many hours spent serving coffee and watching students just like him enjoying the college life he knew he’d never be allowed to have.

It was during those rare moments when he’d question everything, when he allowed himself to wonder if he’d maybe made a mistake by leaving home and enrolling himself in a degree with too many numbers and not nearly enough motivation for someone who’d always enjoyed arts and culture way more than objective math, with subjects and employment perspectives that only helped in draining life a little more out of him with every day that went by.

Studying Business Admin soon became a prison of some sorts to Johnny Suh, as stupid as it would sound if he were to say it outloud, and as much as he tried to regain the illusion he’d first had when he moved to Seoul, it had just disappeared—vanished into thin air and replaced with the crippling anxiety induced by Econometrics midterms and Organisational Behavior case studies and end-of-term projects. And sometimes, when after three hours of intense struggling with Microeconomics problem sets at the break of dawn before a morning shift Johnny would find himself crying out of sheer _stress_ , he’d think to himself that that was _it_ —that he would pack his bags and leave Korea and never come back, Seoul University and Business Faculty be damned, and the idea would round his mind for days until Facetime calls with his parents and shitty ramen with his friends would give him the strength he needed to keep going despite everything.

It all changes, though, on Johnny’s third year of uni, when it’s theoretically too late for both changing degrees and taking a liking to his studies. The timetable stuck with tape to Johnny’s wall above his desk reads _Introduction to Entrepreneurship_ for his first period class, and he walks into the 9AM lecture with dark undereye bags and tired feet, no expectations and no motivations to be had.

The Johnny Suh that emerges from room 3.1.10 two hours later is not the same one who walked in with a heavy heart and a tired soul. No, when Johnny walks out—laptop held tight under his right arm, left hand clutching the strap of his bag where it hangs over his shoulder—, he’s got a glint in his eye that hadn’t been there before. His brain is whirling like crazy, heart beating hard inside his chest with a newfound kind of excitement, and entrepreneurial dreams harboring inside his mind with every step he takes towards the room where _Human Resources Management_ class takes place, and not even the inevitable tick of the clock telling him he’s got a long shift at the cafeteria ahead this afternoon is enough to wipe the silly smile off his face.

Because Johnny’s finally found his role amidst the whirlwind of his life—he’s going to be an entrepreneur, no matter what it takes, and he’s going to be the _best_.

***

Lee Taeyong is both breathtakingly beautiful and the smartest student in Johnny’s _Introduction to Entrepreneurship_ seminars.

Johnny learns about his undeniable intelligence during their first class together, where the petite boy sitting in the first row seems to know the answer to their professor’s every question much to the whole class’ surprise. _“You’re pretty advanced for an introductory course,”_ the professor tells him, and Johnny’s too distracted by the blush tinting Taeyong’s slightly chubby cheeks pink to catch his answer.

When the class finally ends, Johnny makes sure to introduce himself to Taeyong with his kindest smile and an honest heart. “I’m Johnny,” he tells him, watching his smile mirrored by Taeyong’s own lips, “I hope we can be friends—I surely would enjoy having you help me throughout this course.”

Taeyong laughs, the sound gentle as the caress of the summer breeze, and nods his head as he replies, “Lee Taeyong,” pink lips drawing the shape of the syllables, “I’m sure we’ll get along well, Johnny.”

About Taeyong’s beauty, Johnny learns upon first sight the moment he walks into the class and sees him, for he truly looks like he belongs in the Olympus sitting next to Aphrodite; and then more closely, one-on-one, when they hook up after one of the scarce spring parties Johnny’s shifts at the cafeteria allow him to attend.

“I’ve had my eyes on you since the very first moment, you know,” Taeyong drunkenly tells him, his chest pressed to Johnny where they’ve walked into a dark corner of the nightclub, “You’re fucking hot.”

“I could say the same,” Johnny chuckles, his thumb tracing the shape of Taeyong’s burning high cheekbone, “You’re like, the prettiest, smartest guy I’ve ever met.”

“You really think so?” Taeyong almost _purrs_ , his lips brushing Johnny’s as he leans forward until they’re impossibly close, the nod of Johnny’s head almost imperceptible, “Then show me, Johnny. Show me how much you want me.”

And so Johnny does, kisses his breath away and then takes him to his shared flat to make him learn every syllable of his name like a prayer, repeated until satiety—and wishes, albeit in vain, for it not to be the last time he gets to taste Taeyong’s skin like this.

About Taeyong’s economic struggles, Johnny only learns when it’s already too late.

He hears it from Yuta, his flatmate and by now one of his closest friends after three years of shared dishwashing and existential crises, to whom he only briefly mentions Taeyong a couple weeks after their night encounter to tell him he hasn’t seen him in class ever since.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Yuta shrieks at the sound of Taeyong’s name, leaving Johnny startled, “You fucked my best friend and didn’t tell me?!”

“I, what?” Johnny says, dumbfounded, “Lee Taeyong is your best friend? And—hey, I told you I took someone home and you _very explicitly_ told me to please not tell you about it cause you didn’t wanna know!”

“Yeah, cause I heard you dumbass!” Yuta cries out, “God, so that _was_ Taeyong? Holy shit, I’m, man! You made me listen to my best friend getting his brains fucked out of his head!”

“Do you always have to be so enchanting?” Johnny replies with a roll of his eyes, slumping back down on one of the wobbly stools in their ridiculously tiny kitchen once he’s got his second cup of coffee of the day held in his hand, “I didn’t know you knew anyone besides Doyoung in the Business faculty.”

“Did you even talk to him before hooking up? Taeyong isn’t a Business student,” Yuta sighs, stroking his forehead with the pads of his right fingers as he sits next to Johnny, “he’s—well, I guess I gotta say he _was_ now, a Graphic Design major like me. I guess he was taking that class as an optative or something—kid’s too smart for his own good.”

“Of course I did! He told me about his parents kicking him out for being gay and shit. Just—not about degrees, you know I _hate_ talking about that,” Johnny starts huffing, but stops in his tracks as realization dawns upon him, “wait, _was_? Why’d you say that?”

At this, Yuta’s expression turns grim, and he reaches over to pick a half-empty bag of chips discarded onto their second-hand foldable kitchen table for the sake of keeping his hands occupied. “He dropped out, and he didn’t even tell me where he’s gonna go now,” he tells Johnny, eyes fixed on a point of their ugly tiled wall, “Money problems, you know. I guess we _all_ know, dude, don’t we? I mean, look at this fucking apartment. You work your life away while studying man. It’s not fucking fair.”

And Johnny—he hadn’t known Taeyong well enough to call him a friend yet, hadn’t kissed him enough to call him any other than an acquaintance at best; but he knows damn well about the pressure and the struggle, and for reasons he does not quite know how to name, he mourns it just as much as Yuta himself probably does.

***

Lee Taeyong's frugal pass through Johnny’s life is well gone, albeit definitely not forgotten, when the incident that changes Johnny’s life happens.

Entrepreneurship dreams have been harboring inside his mind for months on end now, ideas about opening up an art gallery, a means to show the world all the pieces it’s been deprived of by either greedy hands or unappreciated talent; but money is one tricky issue, that he knows, for he’s had to deal with for long enough to cause a permanent ache in his bones.

On a more pressing matter, rent this month is due in a couple days, and he still hasn’t asked his boss for another advance of his next salary. Textbooks for this semester’s classes have turned out to be more of an expense than he’d first thought, and although he’s been taking double turns at the cafeteria, he still doesn’t have enough money to pay. Not for the first time in the past three years, Johnny feels himself with the water reaching his neck, the noose tightening, his life crumbling around the edges little by little.

It is by chance that Johnny sees it. Accidents happen sometimes, that is a given, and they are more often unfortunate than not.

Still, when he catches sight of a shiny, brand new _Rolex_ laid forgotten on a corner of the bar while he’s wiping it clean, his mind doesn’t even register his thought as he reaches over to grab it, broad body protecting him from unwanted eyes. The watch is made out of stainless steel, a black bezel drawn around its case, the brand signature engraved at the top like a crown—the hands moving as if in slow motion, dragging out every single second Johnny stares at it before pushing it inside the pocket of his navy blue apron.

Albeit some of his friends would like to argue otherwise, Johnny is not stupid. He knows for a fact that the customer who left the watch behind is sure to come back looking for it, most likely as soon as he notices it gone from wherever it is that he was keeping it; and so Johnny doesn’t think, not even for a second, about keeping it for a thing in the world.

But his mind—it sometimes takes unexpected roads, taking Johnny through journeys of ideas he never believed himself able to create.

After googling this one specific model of a _Rolex_ , and against all morals and ethics and everything Johnny’s ever thought himself to be, he finds himself wondering about how rich someone must be to spend around 18k dollars on a fucking _watch_ —surely, rich enough not to really notice it if a few notes were to go missing from his wallet, right?

And so, just like that, the spark of entrepreneurship is lit up inside his brain to never, _ever_ be shut down again.

***

### JOHNNY SUH’S EIGHTFOLD PATH TO ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS

 **Step 1:** Become the greatest thief of all times.

> #### How to become an amazing thief 101: a side guide also by Johnny Suh
> 
> **Step 1.** Gain their trust  
>  **Step 2.** Don’t draw unwanted attention  
>  **Step 3.** Never reveal your secrets  
>  **Step 4.** Master distraction  
>  **Step 5.** Don’t leave any traces behind

***

On that fateful one day, Johnny Suh did end up returning the _Rolex_ to the very agitated client that stormed back into the cafeteria exactly seven minutes and thirty-four seconds after he first found it on the bar.

It wasn’t like he’d ever thought to keep it, anyways, a quick mind when it counts, and so upon catching sight of the expensive-suit-wearing, impeccably-styled-hair, posh accented man that ran into the cafeteria like a man possessed by evil, Johnny’s plan had kicked itself into motion almost automatically.

To this day, Johnny still doesn’t know how he managed to do it—how it was possible for his hands not to tremble, for his voice not to crack, for his always open face not to give away the truth of his actions. The only thing he knows is that, while the client made a fuss while explaining to him where he’d last seen his watch, demanding Johnny to return it to him if he were to have caught sight of it, Johnny’s worried eyes and passionate words and quick hands wove a web so captivating that, by the time the _Rolex_ was clasped back on its owner’s wrist, Johnny had already managed to pluck his _thick_ wallet from the side pocket of his coat, retrieve from it a handful of notes that the man would surely not notice missing, and then return it to its original place without the client noticing a single thing.

That is the story of how Johnny Suh became who he is today, two years from the very moment that changed, quite literally, everything: a shadow most people who’ve encountered him like to call _The Thief_ , operating all around the world and interested only in the finest _undeclared_ pieces of art held by criminals turned into private collectors and the dirty money they keep sealed inside their safes.

After all, there is a price to everything. Entrepreneurship is no exception, and so Johnny finds in stealing away the very pieces that will one day form his project a way to finance his lifelong dream; and it all works so flawlessly that he believes himself in a fantasy tale, for not once in his life had he felt himself this lucky, had he felt a purpose as strong as the one _this_ makes him feel.

Art and culture have always been what Johnny would have liked to dedicate his life to, if only money hadn’t been so tight on him and his family that pursuing a career in those fields would have almost quite literally meant bankruptcy and shame. It was that need for money which made him finish his Business Administration degree after four years struggling with it; and it was his _Introduction to Entrepreneurship_ course that finally opened a gate to the one quest Johnny would set himself on chasing from the very first moment he saw the opportunity upon his first theft at the cafeteria he worked at: opening his own gallery of art, displaying for the whole world to see all the secret masterpieces hidden away in top-security mansions and dark deals, and doing it all for _free_.

Because Johnny has always been frustrated at the way he’d have to pay to witness art, as if it weren’t mankind’s right to enjoy its own creations, as if the price of standing in front of a fine painting or an ancient marble statue should be one that could only be afforded by those rich enough to have spare to spend on it. So, when he learns about endless pieces of art by the most famous artist being missing and most probably held by rich collectors—which should be labelled as criminals if only for the harm they do to humanity hiding parts of their _culture_ from it—, he sets himself on retrieving as many as those pieces as he can and displaying them for everyone to see.

All Johnny will need to do once he’s done putting together his collection, really, is to create an open gallery where to display the art, hiding himself behind layer upon layer of impossibly secure firewalls, coming into view in the form of an anonymous trust with no names attached behind that will return the paintings and the jewels and the statues and treasures to the public after an eternity of being hidden away—a selfless act of commitment to society, both comforting on his heart and his pocket, for in the process of retrieving the ( _still illegal_ ) pieces of art from its wrongful owners with the purpose of bringing them back into the clarity of daylight, Johnny also definitely takes some of that dirty money of theirs home with him.

What can he say—the process of becoming the perfect phantom thief leads him to meet people discrete enough to teach him the ways of money laundering, and his team is quick where his mind is sharp and it all works out for the best of them all.

He might be called a criminal too, by those he steals from—but he could not care less, for if there is a price to everything, then have them pay for their crimes, too.

It is this dream he’s pursuing and the stealing guide he himself put together in between his shifts at the cafeteria back on campus a lifetime ago that leads Johnny to his current situation: he’s fast asleep in the quietness of the apartment he shares with Jung Jaehyun after quite the surprisingly easy heist on a private office downtown, soft snores pouring out of his chapped parted lips, when he’s awakened by the soft sound of footsteps padding into his bedroom and the dipping of the bed as the weight of someone materializes next to him.

“Jaeh—” he doesn’t even have the time to ask before the cold edge of a sharp knife is being pressed to his throat, his heart jumping inside his ribcage as fear and adrenaline kick into his bloodstream and make him violently push away whoever it is that’s straddling him, “what the fuck!”

The attacker hisses as the force of Johnny’s blow sends him tumbling on the floor, and Johnny takes advantage of the next three seconds to turn on the lights and reach towards _something_ —like the lamp on his side table, maybe—he can use to defend himself. The white light from the bulb hanging bare from the ceiling of the room blinds them both for a moment, and when the sparkly dots disappear from Johnny’s vision, he’s once again being tackled by the intruder. This person is all clad in black clothes, wrapped tight around their lithe frame while a hood covers their head, and when Johnny grunts and attempts to flip them over so he can take the knife out of their grip, he finds out that they are surprisingly light for the strength their muscles wield.

“Dude, what the _fuck_ , why are you—” Johnny grunts, elbowing him on the cheek as they wrestle, and he struggles to wrap his fingers tight around their wrist before squeezing hard enough on what he knows to be a pressure point for the knife to drop from their hold just so he can throw it far from them— “trying to _kill_ me?!”

“Shit,” the _assassin_ cries out in pain, bending his knee to hit Johnny on the crotch, which makes him let go of their hands.

Through gritted teeth, Johnny still manages to stop them from crawling back to where he’s thrown the knife to the ground with a strong hand on the shoulder and a harsh pull on the back of the hoodie. It makes the attacker scream as it’s ripped from around their head, leaving them dizzy for a moment with the strain it puts on their neck.

When Johnny hauls the intruder back onto the mattress by their pits so he can pin them down on the bed to stop them from squirming away and trying to attack him again, he doesn’t really know what he is expecting.

What he is _definitely_ not ready for is to see Lee Taeyong when he looks down at his face, flushed red with strain, blooming purple from where Johnny elbowed him a while back.

“Wha—Taeyong?” Johnny’s mouth gapes, and when Taeyong’s eyes regain their focus, they shoot wide open as he finally takes in Johnny’s shape above him.

“Johnny Suh,” Taeyong wheezes, Johnny’s knee pressed to his stomach making it hard for him to breathe, “holy shit, so you’re _him_. Woah.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny asks, brows furrowing as he fights to keep his face from giving anything away.

“Johnny,” Taeyong chuckles, though it’s tight with pain, “do you know what I thought while I was following you from the office you entered tonight? I said to myself, _damn, my target is a fucking fool_. You didn’t even check the air-conditioning conducts.”

The revelation leaves Johnny dumbfounded, and it gives Taeyong the chance to punch him on the face hard enough to send him back on his butt. With the flexibility of a damned contortionist, Taeyong slips out of Johnny’s hold and rushes to pick up his knife, and where Johnny expected mercy from an old friend all he gets is another painful shove to his spine until he ends up right where they began: on his back in his own bed, with Lee Taeyong’s thighs bracketing his own and his left hand wrapped around his neck to hold him in place, the tip of his knife pressed to his adam apple as a smile stretches over Taeyong’s lips.

“Fuck, man,” Taeyong sighs, “I never thought I’d see you again, much less like this. It’s truly a shame.”

“Yeah,” Johnny wheezes, swallowing thickly around Taeyong’s grip, “I was really sad when you left college, you know. I—I’d been looking forward to see you again and, yeah.”

“Oh, Johnny,” Taeyong grins, feral in a way, “was I really that good of a fuck?”

“That’s not,” Johnny gasps as Taeyong’s grip tightens, “that’s not what I meant, I—I really, really wanted to know you and, shit, Taeyong, I liked you, won’t you put down that damned knife?!”

“I can’t really tell if you’re lying or not,” Taeyong’s smile is unwavering, but there’s a sad edge to its curve, “but, you see, I can’t put it down. I’ve been sent to track down and kill _The Thief_ by the man you stole from today.”

“What, but, that’s,” Johnny’s eyes are wide as he tries to find a better position under Taeyong, “that’s _impossible_! I never leave traces, I’m so fucking careful, how could you know—”

“I didn’t know it was you, and neither did he,” Taeyong laughs softly, “but, as I said, the air-conditioning conducts. You didn’t check them—I’ve been monitoring that office for a couple weeks now, since your last robbery in the zone. It was actually quite easy to follow you once you left… after all, you left the window you used open.”

Johnny frowns, his chest tightening in disappointment at having failed at one of the five main points that rule his thieving techniques and which have kept him safe for the last two years. Point five of his _How to become an amazing thief 101_ guide reads _‘Don’t leave any traces behind’_ , and an open window—it’s a basic mistake he shouldn’t have allowed himself to make.

“Fuck,” Johnny deflates, “guess I’ve been becoming a little bit careless as of lately. I’ll need to watch out for that next time.”

“There won’t be a next time, Johnny,” Taeyong rolls his eyes, and even though Johnny tries to push him off himself with the force of his lower body, Taeyong’s strength is quite more than he’d first believed it to be; and so he doesn’t budge, just chuckles and says, “I’ve been paid a great amount to _kill The Thief_ , so unless you’re willing to pay me enough for me to return that money without a loss, you’re a dead man.”

Johnny’s brain, as always making its stellar appearance at the last moment, lights up with an idea as he fixes his gaze to Taeyong, trying to see through him and scratch a couple more minutes to his running-out hourglass of a clock.

“Dude, but my roommate is going to freak out if he finds my corpse tomorrow morning, plus, it’s like, my turn to buy groceries as well!” Johnny cries, “wait, what did you—is Jaehyun okay?”

“Your roommate,” Taeyong chuckles, eyebrows raised, “is fast asleep, I made sure of it. He’ll wake up, though—won’t remember a single thing.”

“Cool,” Johnny hums and, against his better judgement for someone who is being held down at knifepoint, smirks before saying, “hey, hear me out, instead of killing me, why don’t you treat me to dinner with the money they paid you?”

Taeyong outright laughs—a sound as beautiful as Johnny remembers it to have been when they first met, in a classroom where their future perspectives had sounded nothing like they’ve turned out to be.

“Didn’t you hear what I told you?” he huffs, “I have to kill you or else that money is not mine.”

“No,” Johnny grins, then, the triumphant trumpets already starting to resonate inside his head, “you said you had to kill _The Thief_ , but your employer does not know who I am. You can just say you killed me and show him, I don’t know man, whatever proof you need.”

“Yeah, I could,” Taeyong snorts, “but these people are not stupid. They’ll want the money _you_ stole back if I say I killed you.”

“Ah, but you’re already thinking about it,” Johnny smirks, “but if it’s truly like that… then I guess I could share with you the money _I_ stole from that man. That way, even if he doesn’t pay you, you’ll still win and… if you wanted to, you could join my team. We’re a bit short on personnel after someone left, and I’m sure you’d be a great addition.”

Taeyong hums to himself, and even before he gives him a reply, Johnny can feel the grip on his neck loosening as Taeyong conveniently sits back on his lap. The knife stays in place, though, and so he doesn’t claim victory just yet.

And Johnny doesn’t know what he’d do if he were to be in Taeyong’s place, because he doesn’t know what truly happened to him after dropping out of college, and lives like theirs tend to get tangled in the most complicated of ways until stepping out of vicious circles becomes almost impossible.

But still, Johnny remembers the flame in Taeyong’s eyes when they shared classes together, when they’d randomly meet in the library and when they finally had their lips on each other—a light that he hopes has not yet faded, for it had drawn him in so long ago that, even now, Johnny aches to feel its warmth once again.

“Your team, huh?” Taeyong says after a short while, sounding amused, “I guess… that would not be too bad of a career change for me. After all, being a paid assassin is not quite… a dream job, you know.”

“I can imagine,” Johnny muses, and he can’t help but feel the corners of his own lips lifting into a smile, “Now, if you just tell me what you did just to end up as a fucking assassin,” he teases, and Taeyong mirrors the smile on his lips, “then we can put away this damned knife and settle down the terms of our arrangement.”

And Johnny is still not really sure of why Taeyong does what he does, but when he finally sheathes his knife back into the belt fastened around his waist and finally steps away from Johnny to let him breathe, he gives Johnny a second chance at living and getting to know him—and it feels prophetic in an eerie sort of way none of them would be able to explain today.

***

It wasn’t college nor entrepreneurship nor crime itself that taught Johnny the importance of teamwork. That, he learnt from a very young age, life the best teacher on the matter he could have ever hoped to get.

Kim Doyoung, Johnny met in the Business faculty they shared during college. He used to be the president of the debate club, the absolute ace of his class and, on top of it all, one of the closest friends—alongside Yuta—Johnny made throughout his bumpy stay in Seoul University. Jung Jaehyun was an Architecture student way too fond of arguing, and thus, an important member of the debate team Doyoung led. He was also quite fond of the jokes Johnny would make whenever he’d hang around Doyoung after late hour debate meetings, and ended up becoming a part of their group of friends if only for how honest his smile has always been.

The group they made in college wasn’t really one worth noticing—mostly broke kids working horrendous shifts to pay rent and eating bags of chips while they drank in the comfort of cheap bars or their own rooms, but the relationship between them grew strong enough for Johnny to confidently declare them the best friends he’s ever had.

It’s only because they’re his best friends that Johnny tells them all about his plan, his entrepreneurship guide and his crazy dreams—and it’s only because they’re his best friends that they do not think he’s insane but that he’s a _genius_ , and then beg to be a part of his plan and help in any way they can. Money is one sweet treat, but the way Johnny aims to achieve it, with his culture-driven morals and his high-aiming plans, make it impossible for them to say no to his quest.

Everyone moves to find their own place in the world after college, different jobs that still end up making Johnny and Jaehyun room together in an apartment in downtown Seoul that’s a little bigger than the ones they used to have during school and which lead Jaehyun and Doyoung to start dating to the surprise of no one. Johnny starts working in yet another cafeteria that pays a little better to cover up for his expenses, Jaehyun finds a job as a _cashier_ in a house-decor shop and Doyoung, the prodigy that he is, scores an accountant role in a firm that threatens to slowly drag the life out of him. Yuta sadly returns to Japan once he’s done with his Graphic Design major and leaves them all feeling a little bit orphaned, but his promise to help still holds to this day, even if he’s far away, however difficult it might turn out to be.

In the time it takes for them to get the plan rolling, Johnny, ever the mastermind, makes another addition to their little team: a still-college-kid called Mark Lee that’s way too good with computers and smarter than any of them could ever hope to be, and it all rolls so smoothly that all of them believe themselves in a dream.

“We’re really making it happen,” Doyoung says one day, starry eyed as Jaehyun takes to refill their cups with wine, “we’re gonna be creating the gallery some day.”

“We are,” Johnny smiles, and Mark laughs in delight at the prospect and claps his hands, “when we gather enough pieces and make good money to begin!”

And so it all feels like family; feels too much like divine purpose.

Mark is no longer around when Taeyong joins the team, gone for a fate more certain than Johnny would ever be able to offer him, but the wheel keeps spinning and it all still works out in the most perfect of ways.

Taeyong is one capable human, he proves time and time again sneaking anywhere he needs to for preparation or performance of their more tricky heists. Johnny cannot say he is surprised, because while he’s always known Taeyong to be incredibly intelligent, the stunt in his room the day he offered him to join them only showed him just how agile he’s become. _Perks of being a professional assassin_ , Taeyong jokes if they’re drunk enough, and yeah.

Johnny could have never known the boy he’d set his eyes on during college would end up having to kill for money to eat, but the world is one cruel place; yet after all, they meet again and it too feels like a convenient twist of fate.

Lee Taeyong is, too, an important piece on the chess board that is Johnny’s modus operandi for his more public heists. Point number four of his very own guide reads _Master distraction_ , and at that, Taeyong excels—for all eyes fly to him when he enters a ballroom, breathtaking beauty where one would expect mediocrity, sweet words dripping from his enchanting lips that leave the coast clear for Johnny to act and retrieve what he comes to pick in places like this: paintings or jewels and always some money tightly kept, none of it able to escape the ability of his team.

The downturn of it, maybe, is the way that the sight of Taeyong wearing a tailored navy suit or a too-unbuttoned shirt often compromises the second point of Johnny’s guide: _Don't draw unwanted attention_ , though it’s undoubtedly on purpose, though it’s only unwanted by Johnny—because what he wants, _oh_.

What he wants is something else.

(“I just hope we can make it a little bit of a better place for everyone, you know,” Johnny tells Taeyong one day while they mull over endless paper sheets of data for yet another theft, “don’t you think beautiful things should belong to the whole world to see?”

“And yet you want me all to yourself,” is the only reply Taeyong gives him, cocky smile stretched across his lips.)

Kissing Taeyong again feels like fireworks exploding in the sky on a summer night, like standing under the trees while cherry blossoms shower you with their pink; both explosive and sweet, like homecoming and burning into a pyre of flames all at the same time. It happens after a particularly complicated money-retrieving mission, in which both Johnny and Taeyong have to make a great escape through a too-tall window and end up getting home in scratched sore skin and soaked clothes after landing on a huge pile of snow.

The night ends with them sitting in front of the fireplace at Doyoung’s house, for Taeyong’s apartment is way too far for a trip while they’re this cold and Johnny’s lack the warmth their bodies crave after a plan almost gone bad. It ends with them in pajamas that fit them wrong in all the right places and Johnny’s hands on Taeyong’s cotton-covered trembling thighs, with Johnny spilling too sincere words about how _I could never stop thinking about you, Taeyong, you’ve just got something and I wish I could know what it is_ , with Taeyong slowly melting under the sweet caress of the fire and Johnny’s spilling soul. It ends with Taeyong’s lips on Johnny’s own, with his tongue licking into his mouth, with his teeth engraved on Johnny’s shoulder and them both silently gasping as they come undone under each other’s touch in Doyoung’s spare room, secret to keep for the years to come, knowing stares and silly little laughs that surprisingly make Johnny feel more alive than he’s had in a very long time.

Not even the adrenaline from the most elaborate of his heists, Johnny will one day come to conclude, can compare to the fuzzy feeling in his belly whenever he’s alone with Lee Taeyong.

Before any of them have time to notice it, what Johnny once, in a life far away from the one they have now, thought would be all he and Taeyong could ever have—a one night stand, not a chance to make things work if only because Taeyong disappeared, if only because destiny had other plans—turns into something more. It turns into something that tugs at some hidden corner of Johnny’s chest and tells him there’s more glory in the aftermath of a robbery than in the prize stolen, in the way he gets to strip Taeyong of his clothes and kiss away every trace of tension and fear until they’re both left panting into each other mouths, always an anchor rooting each other to sanity, reminding them that there’s greater purpose to what they do if only because they get to be together while the world around them keeps crumbling down.

The dip of Taeyong’s muscles in between his hipbones becomes home for Johnny’s tongue, and soon enough there is not a night in which they do not sleep curled up against each other, in which Taeyong’s lips do not kiss forgiveness into the soreness of Johnny’s skin, in which they do not hold onto the promise of making it together and then keep going for evermore. They move in together three months after Taeyong first accepts Johnny’s proposal of joining the team, with Jaehyun finally overcoming the fear of living with Doyoung – _“I don’t want coexistence to ruin our relationship!”_ —and Taeyong leaving the shitty studio he’d been living in— _“I need to pretend I’m not stealing money and on my way to becoming rich, weren’t you the one talking about not drawing attention? I work under a secret identity in a fucking flower shop, for fuck’s sake!”_ —to occupy Jaehyun’s former room in Johnny’s apartment, and Johnny has truly never been this happy before.

He and Taeyong just work together perfectly, ruthless professionals and passionate lovers, and so for a year it all goes dreamily fine—enough for Johnny to believe himself having found Heaven on Earth, enough for him to let his guard down and lay himself bare before the only person he ever wants to share his life with.

That is, until Johnny receives a call from a secret number on his phone in the middle of his morning shift at the cafeteria on a cold winter morning, a year away from their first kiss, instinct kicking into his gut and telling him to pick up the call.

“Hello?” he warily says into the speaker, “I’m working, who’s this?”

“Johnny, dude,” Mark's voice is rushed as he greets him from the other side, a hint of urgency bleeding into his tone, “listen to me, I don’t have much time, just—trust me on this one, okay?”

“Mark?” Johnny’s eyebrows get drawn together in confusion as he walks to the back of the store, leaving the counter unattended for a moment, “What’s wrong? Dude, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just, Lee Taeyong,” Mark whispers into the phone, Johnny’s ear tickling with the unpleasant sound of air hitting the microphone, “US intel contacted him couple days ago, man, and I know you trust him and all that but—shit, please don’t hate me for this but, you know the police here in Europe and everywhere else have nothing on _The Thief_ , right? Even if—even if they suspected it’s you, they could never do a thing about it because there’s no evidence, no proof, and that’s what’s kept you going all this time. But now they—they’ve had Taeyong on their watch for a long time, he’s a _wanted_ individual cause he used to be a _fucking assassin_ , dude, and they think he’s probably working with _The Thief_ and so they’ve offered money and to clear him of all his charges if he hands you in.”

Mark blurts out the words as if they don’t bear the weight of every single block making up the walls of Johnny’s life, and once he’s done, the static silence that takes over the line mirrors that of the inside of Johnny’s own mind. His ears ring with white noise, whiplash from the way Mark has managed to knock all the air out of his lungs, and his heart skips a beat at the dawning realization of all things coming to an end.

“You sure,” Johnny’s voice fails at tilting into a question, defeated even before the battle, “what’s he told them?”

“I don’t know what he’s said or if he’s agreed,” Mark whispers again, and Johnny pictures him hiding inside a closet as he tells him everything, “but they’ve offered him a fucking new chance at life, Johnny. I don’t know if one would refuse that if offered on a silver plate… despite his affinities with you and all that.”

It is then that Johnny understands that, despite how much he’s loved thinking otherwise, Taeyong’s loyalties lie elsewhere.

“Right,” Johnny mumbles, and the sound of the bell signaling a client walking into the cafeteria takes him out of his haze, “thank you so much for telling me, Markie. Stay safe, okay?”

“You too, man,” Mark breathes, and Johnny’s chest aches, “miss ya’, please take care.”

They don’t say goodbye when they hang up, for Johnny does not believe himself able to speak out a farewell that feels too much like burial for his soul. Love is a mistake he’d never considered while planning out the path of his life, and for it he pays greatly. His heart shatters into pieces so small no one could ever hope to glue back together, and the sound of Taeyong’s name suddenly tastes bitter on his tongue, like a trip gone wrong or a drink gone sour, like the pain that comes with giving yourself away to the hands of the someone who gave you a second chance yet has not loved you despite having shared everything.

Still, Johnny’s brain kicks into motion—a plan inside a plan, survival of the strongest, everything and everyone he’s ever worked for at stake.

Johnny’s already gone by the time Taeyong returns home from the flower shop he’s been working at for the past year, so he doesn’t get to see the face he makes upon finding their apartment devoid of life, no Johnny or any of his things in sight. He doesn’t get to see Taeyong worriedly calling out for him, doesn’t get to feel the cold sweat beading up on the back of his neck and trailing down his spine—but he can imagine the horror morphing into shape on Taeyong’s face at the note stuck to their fridge with a Chicago-themed magnet, warning and goodbye all at the same time.

_“Taeyong dearest,_

_Betrayal sure does look good on you—I guess I was a fool to trust and love you, but from all things one can learn._

_Good luck explaining all your crimes to the Korean National Police Agency, they’re probably already waiting outside the door by the time you turn around after reading this._

_See you in Hell!_

_— The Thief & his loyal team”_

Johnny’s already gone, disappeared out of the country and the continent with Doyoung and Jaehyun in tow, so he doesn’t get to witness Taeyong’s great escape from his trap, nor does he see or hear from him in the three years that are to come.

Taeyong stays a guest in his memory, not fading yellow even after time goes by, and it is that fact that will lead them both to meet again, at the dawning of the world.


	2. Chapter 2

The sequence of events that have led Lee Taeyong to this very moment, in which he’s been unceremoniously pushed into an isolation cell in South Korea’s most secure prison after quite a rough interrogation, is not one he can say to be proud of.

If he takes a trip down the memory lane, he will find with distaste that it all, as it seems to be quite the recurring theme in his life story, starts with Johnny Suh.

Johnny Suh, as in the last guy he kissed before being forced to leave college by a crippling debt once his grandma, the only member of his family still standing by his side, passed away and thus stopped helping him to cover his expenses, all her money gone into Taeyong’s failed degree in Graphic Design.

Johnny Suh, as in that who secret services and police force all around the world call _The Thief_ , to who Taeyong gave a second chance the night he spared his life in exchange for a place in his team—helping him and his assortment of incredibly intelligently delirious friends steal the money and the art they would one day use to open up that free gallery Johnny’s been dreaming of for far too long.

Johnny Suh, as in the one who set Taeyong a trap for the South Korean police to catch him and then disappeared into a cloud of smoke, no goodbyes except that of the word traitor being wrongfully labelled on Taeyong’s head.

It all, Taeyong guesses, is his fault because if Johnny Suh hadn’t been so reckless, if he’d trusted Taeyong the way Taeyong had trusted him by helping him fulfill the unhinged plan to his dream he so carefully designed, he would have asked before taking the information that’d probably reached him as a given; he would have given Taeyong the benefit of the doubt, said something like _“Hey, Taeyong, are you working for US Intel?”_ , would have received the most honest _“No”_ as a reply and they could have still been happy as they’d been up to that point.

The pain of heartbreak, no matter how uncertainly sustained, can be blinding, clouding judgement and leading us all to mistakes. Taeyong and Johnny were no exceptions, for Taeyong will admit to having loved him, with his warmth and his smile and his perfectly crafted heart, like he’d never loved anyone else; and so he lays down on the squeaky bed pushed into a corner of the cold, concrete cell and stares up at the ceiling, the past now only memories to lament.

Taeyong hadn’t been working for US Intelligence when Johnny had thought he was, even though the information he probably got telling him about it was, most certainly, accurate.

Intelligence had, indeed, reached out to him, leaving Taeyong feeling cold down to his bones with the anguish that comes with knowing yourself being hunted down by hungry wolves willing to tear your flesh down to unrecognizable pieces of ash. What they’d offered him sounded more than tempting—complete absolution, acquittal without a trial, another chance at life without having to bear the worry of his blood-stained hands if he only told them who and where _The Thief_ was.

And it had been tempting, he would never deny, but Johnny had meant everything to Taeyong, then—enough for him to give up on peace for himself if only to protect him, to keep him safe, to keep loving him the way he’d done for the past year. That was the reason why he still hadn’t given them a reply, too busy thinking about how to disappear from Intel’s radar again without ever considering actually handing Johnny in, when Johnny disappeared—believing Taeyong a traitor, believing him a liar, believing him not to have loved Johnny with every single piece of his marred heart.

Getting out of the trap Johnny set him turned out to be quite easier than Taeyong could have expected from someone as capable when it comes to strategy as him, but the kitchen’s window had been left conveniently open and, in the back of his head, Taeyong thought it was Johnny’s last chance to him. Still, once he’d fled his and Johnny’s shared apartment, delirious as it sounds now, Taeyong had found himself with nothing and nothing at all—no home and no shelter and no one to rely on, left behind by the team that was the closest thing to a family he’d ever had, and so out of spite and with anger and resentment taking over every single cell of his body at the dawning realization of what Johnny had done, he’d replied to US Intelligence with a desperate claim: I don’t know who _The Thief_ is but you know I’m a good spy, let me help you, I can be useful to you.

And so that is how Taeyong ended up serving American Intel during two long years, spying and killing the targets he was told to erase, and even if he’d first thought that secret services would entail less killing and more sitting in front of a desk analyzing data—though he wasn’t really good at that in the first place—, he’d already fallen into the endless spiral of violence that had once been the only option in his life with no foreseeable way out.

Nothing lasts forever, though, and that is something he forcefully learnt from a very young age.

It’s now been a year since his agency told him they would no longer need his services, and that even though he’d been of great help in numerous missions, Taeyong had ultimately failed at his original purpose: identifying and handing in _The Thief_ , the core to their agreement, the one thing Taeyong would never do if only because it was Johnny and he could not bear the weight of killing him himself—if only because, in the back of his mind, he still believes in his project, he still feels himself a part of it.

It is his loyalty to the person who believed him a traitor that leads Taeyong back into the government’s Wanted List despite all his efforts, no redemption for him despite the blood spilt in his quest for acquittal; that leads him to run away from America and become a paid assassin yet again in South Korea, that leads him to try to live in secrecy for as long as he can manage to escape the United States and Korea’s own radar actively searching for him.

It is the way he once loved and believed in Johnny Suh that makes Taeyong get caught by a South Korean Intelligence team in a backstreet in Busan and then puts him in Ganghwado Prison, the most secure prison in the country in which it is physically impossible to break into, from which it is impossible to escape alive—an uncertain fate heavy on his shoulders, a bitter taste flooding the back of his tongue.

It is the way he once loved and believed in Johnny Suh that plagues Taeyong's mind as he tries to sleep, somehow ironically happy that at least that is something he can do now, after a life of doing so with an eye open just in case.

Taeyong is on the brink of finally falling asleep when the apocalypse happens right above his head.

The deafening sound of the concrete wall making up the back of his prison cell exploding into flying pieces of debris and collapsing into the burning ground is what startles Taeyong into panic, smoke quickly making its way into his lungs and pushing him into a violent coughing fit. It is the muscle memory that comes with having been a criminal and a secret agent for way too long that stops fear from taking control of his limbs, and Taeyong is silently thankful for it as he scrambles out of the bed and tries to search for a quick way out in between the mountains of crumbling concrete and the flames pouring out thick clouds of smoke, compromising his vision.

“Well, well, well, look who we got here!” Someone teasingly says from somewhere Taeyong can see, urgency taking over his common sense and pushing him to run towards the source of the explosion in a desperate try at getting away.

The surreal opportunity to escape, no matter how eerie or downright impossible it seems, is taken away from his hands as quickly as it had come. Strong arms are wrapped around Taeyong’s slender frame from behind, an iron hold against which he cannot fight, and the smell of the cloth wet with chloroform that’s pressed to his nose is almost but not totally masked by that of smoke. Taeyong ironically thinks about how this way, too, is how he was brought to prison in the first place.

In his last second of consciousness, brain already gone numb and tethering over the edge of delirium, he thinks he sees Johnny’s face before everything turns pitch black.

***

When Taeyong wakes up, his body feeling weirdly rested for what his foggy mind remembers his last moments of consciousness to be—debris, smoke, strong arms around his lithe body, a strong hand pressing a wet cloth to the bottom half of his face, the face of a man he thought he’d never see again—, his first instinct is to search for a weapon he can use to defend himself.

The quick study of his surroundings made by Taeyong’s still sleepy eyes gives him three points to which he can cling in his quest to understand where he is. First, that he’d been sleeping on quite a comfy beige couch, a fluffy brown blanket thrown over his body keeping him warm. Second, that he’s in what looks like the suite of a hotel, the fancy logo engraved on the bottom corner of the blanket a dead giveaway to this fact. Third.

Taeyong doesn’t like the third point one bit.

“Good morning,” Johnny Suh tells him the moment their eyes meet, his stupid smirk still stretched across his plump lips, “did you sleep well?”

Taeyong’s flight or fight response is triggered automatically at the sight. His muscles lock up, fists closing around nothing as he aches for a knife to grip, a gun to hold, a shield to protect himself from the inevitable threat that Johnny has supposed to him for the last three years.

“Where the fuck are we,” Taeyong snaps, voice sharp as he stands up from the couch and throws the blanket away. Johnny mimics his movement, and Taeyong hates how small he makes him feel when he hovers a head taller than him, their size difference more evident in the close distance.

“In my hotel room, baby, _c’mon_ ,” Johnny’s tone is teasing, so full of himself that Taeyong wants nothing but to slap him across the face, “I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out by yourself.”

“Why,” Taeyong’s stare is hard, gaze unwavering where it’s set on Johnny’s deep brown eyes, “Why the hell did you fucking bust into _Ganghwado Prison_ and get me out of there like it was nothing, why can’t you fucking leave me alone, you stupid idiot.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Since when do you curse so much?” Johnny has the audacity to _laugh_ , and it sets Taeyong’s blood on a frenzy inside his veins, heart thumping wildly at the utter annoyance the sound arises at its wake, “Calm down, will you? You’re safe with me.”

“Bullshit,” Taeyong takes a step away from the couch, taking a quick look around the room before moving closer to one of the panel windows. He needs to assess the height of the building, in case he needs to take a fall, “I’m not safe anywhere. At least in prison I could rest.”

“Are you for real?” Johnny chuckles, and Taeyong hates both how incredulous he sounds and the way he thinks he can _talk_ to him after what he did the last time they met, “You were in that prison for less than eight hours, of course they let you rest. But do you honestly think they would’ve left you alone after that? Baby, there’s a price on your head, and the _Government_ caught you. I’m pretty sure they were ready to leave human rights aside for a few hours while they had a talk with you… and we haven’t even talked about actual prison life! Do you have any idea what that is like?”

“Not that you do either, right, Johnny?” Taeyong hisses, a snake ready to attack its prey if it doesn’t stop taunting him soon, “Stop calling me baby and tell me what the fuck I’m doing in here.”

Johnny moves away from where he was standing behind the coffee table in front of the couch, and his shoes make a clicking sound when he walks on the dark wooden floor towards where Taeyong is standing with his back to the window.

He’s calculated they’re probably on a forty-second floor. He doesn’t think he’ll jump.

“I’m assembling a team,” Johnny says when he’s finally standing in front of him, and his eyes catch Taeyong in the bottomless trap that they are.

“A team?” Taeyong scoffs, despite the way his chest tightens at the closeness, the reminder of all the things he lost—what _they_ lost, what they gave up for a life they chose but never really learnt to love, “What, like the Avengers? Are you Captain America or something now?”

“I’d rather be IronMan,” Johnny hums to himself, and he dares to lift a hand to cradle Taeyong’s chin, touching him as if he believes himself in the right to have him again, light years away from the moment when Taeyong gave him his everything, “You, though. You’re my Black Widow—perfectly ruthless, the only missing piece for my master plan.”

Anger bubbles in Taeyong’s chest at the words, an inflation balloon that only grows bigger with every thought he gives to what they were— _lovers_ , for a lack of a better word to describe a relationship that left Taeyong bare before Johnny’s eyes, that took all his resolve and twisted it around for nothing at the end—, to what they are now— _enemies_ , Taeyong guesses they should be, after Johnny set him up three years ago for the Korean National Police Agency to catch him, when he disappeared and took with him everything Taeyong ever thought he’d get to give anyone: all his love, all his truth, the last redoubt of conscience he still had after a life harder than he believes anyone should have.

“I should slit your throat open and leave you here until you bleed out to death,” Taeyong spits, and it tastes bitter against the back of his throat when he pushes the words out, “Why would I ever help you out?”

“Because you owe me, darling,” Johnny says, sickly sweet, “for using me and lying to me for a whole year, back in Seoul, and for taking you out of that hell of a prison. I bet you ran so fast to rat me out to your government three years ago, and yet here I am, giving you another chance after they caught you. Shouldn’t you be thankful?”

For a single second, Taeyong’s eyesight flashes bright red—fury licks at the bottom of his lungs in flames, and his hands grip the collar of Johnny’s stupidly expensive shirt with enough force to tear it down to shreds if he pulled hard enough. “I don’t owe you a single thing,” he hisses, feeling himself going out of his mind at the audacity of Johnny’s assumptions, if only because they’re all _wrong_.

Taeyong would have never betrayed him, not after everything they went through together, not after how much of himself he gave away to Johnny’s hand to mold to his desired shape—because Taeyong fell for him, so hard that it sometimes hurt to _breathe_ , so hard that the ache in between his ribs would only go away when he finally had Johnny’s lips on his own and his hands on his skin, telling him it would all be fine, that they’d still have each other after everything.

And he did tell him, but where Taeyong believed him, Johnny himself did not—betrayed Taeyong and left him to rot without a goodbye, without a single explanation as to why he acted like that.

The memory still tastes acrid on the back of Taeyong’s tongue, and so he bites down on the inside of his own cheek hard enough to draw blood, in a desperate quest to mask the bitter flavour.

“Let me go,” Johnny says, looking down at his hands; eerily calm, gentle where Taeyong has learnt to expect violence from everyone else, “I don’t wanna have to knock you out again.”

“I’d like to see you _try_ , you stupid giant, I’ll fucking _kill you_ if you dare—“

“Hello?” A voice resonates across the painted paper clad walls of the suite then; gentle but firm, the promise that tells Taeyong he’s got all the odds against him if it were to come down to a fight.

He calculates his chances for a second—Johnny’s undeniably broader than him, but Taeyong is way more flexible, definitely faster than him—, until the voice calls out to him and not Johnny; a sound that triggers a part of his memory he’s tried to erase endless times, the reminder of a life he no longer feels his own.

“Taeyong? Holy _shit_ , Johnny, dude, did you really manage to get him out?”

“Yuta?” Taeyong asks, incredulous, because it can’t possibly be true. It’s been so long since they last saw each other—way longer than the three years he’s gone without hearing from Johnny—, theirs the friendship he’d cherished the most during his college days and the one that died alongside a part of Taeyong’s own self when he had to drop out and get into the web that’s ended up putting him in this position today. It’s been so long that, when he sees him standing at the entrance to the room, Taeyong recognises him for his eyes; always honest, feline in a way, home for a soul that’s almost forgotten the meaning of that word by now, “What the—fuck, is it really _you_?”

“Did you doubt I would?” Johnny scoffs, taking advantage of Taeyong’s shock to slip out of his grip, ignoring his presence as he speaks, “He just woke up, so he’s a bit… confused.”

“Of course he is,” Yuta rolls his eyes. His hair is dyed platinum blonde, grown longish at the tips; sapphire on his ears, an expensive suit perched on the wide frame of his shoulders. Taeyong fears himself in a dream. “Yah, Taeyong, aren’t you even gonna say hi to me? After all this time?”

Taeyong should probably know better. Johnny is not someone he can trust anymore—not after what he did, setting him up for the Korean police to catch him and tear him down to shreds if he hadn’t been smart enough to get out of his trap—, and if Yuta is here it must mean that he’s on his side.

But it’s been a long day—a long few days, actually, and weeks and months, years without the slightest bit of human kindness and warmth that, when it is offered to him like this, on a silver plate for him to taste, he can do nothing but let himself crumble and drink from it like a starved man.

Tension bleeds out of Taeyong like crimson red fresh out of an open wound as he pulls away from Johnny, unaware of the movement of his feet until he’s standing in front of the last best friend he ever had; Nakamoto Yuta, older and definitely more polished, but still himself in the way he looks and smiles at Taeyong, in the way he wraps his arms around him and hugs him like his hands aren’t dirty with the blood of all the people he’s killed.

“Yuta,” Taeyong breathes out, and the sound is so frail that he should feel embarrassed at such a display of weakness—but, surprisingly enough, he doesn’t. Vulnerability is also a virtue, one he had enough time to master before first-hand learning the pain that comes with betrayal, “What the hell, what is going on? I don’t understand anything, just—why are you here? Why am _I_ here?”

Yuta laughs, a warm sound that sets Taeyong at ease for the time being, despite Johnny’s looming presence at his back. He runs his hand through Taeyong’s jet black hair in a soothing motion he hasn’t felt for too long, and pulls back to look at him in the eyes when he speaks, always sincere, “It’s a long story, but I think we’ve got more than enough time to talk about it all. Just know that you’re safe here, alright? Trust me on this one. Johnny’s on your side this time, too.”

Johnny chuckles while Taeyong watches him sit back down on the couch where he’d been lying before out the corner of his eye, and so he nods his head and lets himself take a good look at Yuta again; a once over that leaves him more confused than anything.

Because, what, is he fucking rich now, too? Did everyone win the lottery or rob a fucking bank while he was busy working for stupid American Intelligence only to be abandoned once they deemed him not useful anymore?

On a second thought, he guesses that could very plausibly be true. None of them have ever known the word _fear_ , that’s for sure, even if he still doesn’t really understand why Yuta _knows_ Johnny Suh.

“Taeyong,” Johnny calls, and this time he’s serious in his gentleness, no mockery in sight, “let’s sit down and talk, yeah? Ceasefire and all that.”

Taeyong looks at Yuta, and he receives a nod in return, “It’s for the best,” he says, and Taeyong takes the chance and trusts him this time.

It feels a little bit like jumping into a pool full of sharks. At least Taeyong is used to the rush of adrenaline that comes with all things uncertain, to putting up a fight and more often than not coming out victorious.

He’s got nothing left to lose, after all.

***

The map extended over the coffee table around which they sit stares back at Taeyong in defiance— _what are you going to do_ , it seems to ask, _tell them they’re crazy when you were once the one making these plans?_

“You’re crazy,” he says against the will of the voice inside his own head, for it’s been too long since he last sat down and had a talk with his conscience, “for a start, there’s a hundred twenty-seven art pieces in that gallery, and eight security barriers to get through before getting into the storage room where they’re supposedly being kept before exhibition. And you said the owner keeps constant monitoring of the place with high-tech devices. It’s impossible to rob them.”

“Impossible is a word I still dislike, Taeyong,” Johnny replies from where he’s leaning back into the couch with his legs spread open, by all means looking disinterested about Taeyong’s opinions on the matter, “I’ve been proven time and time again that even the most absurd things you may think of can still happen. I’m sure you can understand what I’m talking about.”

It’s Yuta’s hand quickly landing on his thigh from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the fluffy rug padding the wooden floor underneath the table that stops Taeyong from lunging fists-first at Johnny’s face.

“You can keep back your witty remarks, asshole,” Taeyong hisses, and it draws a deep sigh out of Yuta’s chest, “it’s not like I’m going to help you with any part of your circus. You’re practically begging to get caught, and that would most probably end with me _dead_.”

“Now, Taeyong,” Johnny chuckles, “you haven’t even let us tell you about our plan nor our ways. We’ve definitely made some improvements since your departure from the team.”

“Oh, really?” Taeyong faux-marvels, a borderline manic grin taking shape on his face as he stares back at him, “Wow, tell me more, Mr. Thief! I can’t wait to worship your godly ways.”

“Yong,” Yuta interrupts their quickly escalating exchange of reproaches, jaw set in a hard line as he speaks, “seriously, hear us out. This is a great opportunity, let Johnny tell you about the plan. Please.”

“Right,” Johnny looks pleased as he smiles, running a hand through his caramel hair until he’s pushed it all away from his face, “I’d appreciate it if you could stay quiet until I’m done explaining, just to, you know. Avoid dipping ourselves into less relevant topics.”

“But of course,” Taeyong laughs, and he’s starting to feel himself headed towards an inevitable road of hysteria, “do you also want me to kneel while you speak? Should I kiss your feet?”

“Whatever gets you going, baby, you were always one to like everything,” Johnny fires back, smirk never wavering as Taeyong’s blood boils inside his veins, “but either way, hear me out on this one. The gallery is a private one, which no one who’s not been invited by the owner himself, Byun Baekhyun, can attend. Of course, this is because he uses it as a means to cover all the illicit transactions he makes with overseas investors.”

“Investors,” Yuta adds, “which is just another euphemism for criminals. It’s all about illegal deals with the mafia and corrupt businessmen.”

“That is,” Johnny steals the spotlight once again, much to Taeyong’s dismay, “the source of all the art and the incredible amount of dirty money Mr. Baekhyun is keeping under tight seal inside the backroom at his gallery.”

“How can you be sure it’s being kept there?” Taeyong asks, eyebrows raised, “Have you gone and studied the place already?”

“I told you the team’s been improved, haven’t I?” Johnny sighs, “We know where the money is being kept before the heist itself. Saves lots of time, makes things much easier—after all, we have to spend less time on distraction if we know for sure where to head to first. Searching the place on the day of the theft is a thing of the past.”

“The gallery is located in a suburb here, in Tokyo,” Yuta speaks up then, and for that, Taeyong is relieved, “but of course, getting an invite to attend it is almost impossible if you’re a no one.”

“Almost,” Taeyong repeats, pressing his lips together and then twisting his mouth to the left, “that means there’s a possibility.”

“Of course there is a possibility,” Johnny grins, feral, “there is _always_ an opportunity. Every man and every system has a weakness.”

“And that is why we need you,” Yuta says, eyes meeting Taeyong’s troubled gaze, “you’re the most capable person we could think of to play the most crucial part of this heist.”

“My team is already working into how to get past the security thresholds and retrieve the biggest possible number of illegal art pieces kept there while we steal the money,” Johnny continues, “and Yuta here is, as always, offering us support with the legalization of the money and, on top of that, actively collaborating and giving us a place to use as headquarters during our stay in Japan. Ever since he formally joined the team everything’s been rolling much more smoothly, thankfully.”

“And you want me to do what?” Taeyong asks, an indecipherable tilt in his voice.

“Have you really gone that rusty, Taeyong? I thought you’d still remember,” Johnny’s smirk does not get any less irritating no matter how long Taeyong’s had to stare at it, “Point one and four of the guide, baby. _Gain their trust. Master distraction._ There’s no one better than you in any of those fields.”

Everything clicks horrifyingly into place all at once, and Taeyong hopes for the sake of his pride that shock is not as evident on his face as it feels on his brain. While Yuta’s eyes are hopeful as he looks at Taeyong, clearly awaiting a reply, Johnny has not lost any of his composure, still slouched back into the couch with the untouchable kind of atmosphere he likes to carry with himself.

It’s a façade Taeyong has long learnt not to trust.

“You want me to convince Byun Baekhyun to invite me to the gallery, don’t you?” Taeyong says, mouth molding out the shape of the syllables until they’re dripping with irony and rage, “What makes you think I’m going to agree?”

“I like to think I once knew you,” Johnny answers without missing a beat, unnervingly calm, “and I don’t think you have many other options left except that of, well. Life-long imprisonment, at the hands of clandestine intelligence teams, no less! Who knows, it may even be the death row, baby. I’m sure it’s going to be a tough choice for you.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” Taeyong hisses, standing up and knocking over the coffee table and everything sitting atop with the force he wields in his limbs, “maybe I could kill you and get out of here, maybe I would rather be dead than help you. You have no idea about me, Johnny Suh.”

“That is true,” Johnny gives, but his smile never leaves—though it softens, almost imperceptibly so, “I guess I never really knew you, no matter how hard I tried. But you did spare my life once, so I’d like to believe you would not take that away from me now, after I got you out of jail.”

It feels too much like a punch to the gut, the way Johnny still knows how to tug at every single thread making up the shroud wrapped around what little is left of Taeyong’s soul, but he does not have time to retaliate before Yuta speaks.

“If you help us, Yong, you’ll finally get to live in peace once this heist is over, without having to go to jail. I promise you we’ll make sure of it,” he tells him, and his eyes have always been lots of things but never insincere, “we will never let anything happen to you, please trust me.”

Taeyong feels frozen into place, heart drumming violently against his bruised ribcage at the prospect of taking the opportunity, of believing himself able to fight for his life one more time.

“It’s true, Taeyong,” Johnny says, then, and every trace of cockiness is gone and replaced by a soft tone that reminds him of better days—laying together under the warm covers of their bed, laughing as they tried to cook a failed dinner for everyone, “if you help us, I will never let them get to you. You know I have an unbreakable promise to protect every single member of my team.”

The room falls into a peaceful silent, then, only the rhythmic sound of their breathing filling up the rich space. Taeyong wouldn’t know how to voice a reply right now even if he were being held at gunpoint, absolutely abashed by the frankness of Johnny’s words, so he just looks away from his piercing stare and says, “I want to take a shower—I feel dirty and everything hurts.”

When Taeyong takes a towel from Yuta’s hands— _“I can’t believe you two were roommates and I never knew”_ —and slams shut the door to the enormous suite bathroom, he tries his best not to think about how Johnny Suh is offering him a second chance at living, much too similarly to what happened after their fight in his former apartment four years ago when Taeyong spared his life. He guesses Johnny still owed him for that one, and that he's redeeming himself by giving Taeyong a place in this plan.

By taking it, they will both be at peace—and so Taeyong will be left with no leverage against him, if that is something that ever existed.

The drip of warm water on his marred skin feels heavenly, and for a while, Taeyong allows himself to let go of the heavy chains of anger and hurt dragging down his heart and wonders, in the privacy of this place that is not his nor private, if redemption is something he and Johnny are still allowed after having ruined their everything.

***

“Since you’re very generously going to be helping us,” Johnny’s voice drips with satisfaction as he walks down the hotel’s corridors with Yuta and Taeyong, and it makes the latter want to do something like break his fucking nose, “I guess it’s only fair to introduce you to the whole team.”

“They’re all here?” Taeyong asks, ignoring Johnny’s jab as they follow Yuta down endless turns and stair flights that make the hotel look more of a labyrinth than he would have first expected, “Damn, how big is this place? We’ve been walking for a while.”

“It’s pretty big, I’d say,” Yuta laughs softly, and the difference between the sound he makes and the one Taeyong’s learnt to associate with Johnny is that Yuta’s is gentle where Johnny’s is downright condescending, “I own the place, though, so it’s all right. Think of this as your safe refuge, I’ll make sure no one’s able to know you lot are here.”

“You own the place?” Taeyong gapes, remembering Johnny’s undeniably expensive suite while taking in the rich décor on the walls and the exquisite rugs lining the floors, “That’s—is this what you meant when you said you’d provide with headquarters?”

“Bingo,” Johnny grins, “Yuta here made a name for himself as well, you know.”

“It’s taken me a while,” Yuta shrugs, but Taeyong can tell he’s proud of himself, “I can’t say it’s all been legal but, seeing as it’s you all who I’m talking to, I guess that might not be that bad of a thing.”

“Absolutely,” Johnny nods, “You’ve worked hard, regardless of where or how. It’s all well-deserved.”

Taeyong observes their exchange with curious eyes, noting down the way they’re both quite obviously comfortable with each other, how camaraderie seems to flow through their every word. He hadn’t heard from Yuta since he dropped out of college, despite how much it hurt to lose the person who had been his best friend, if only because keeping ties with his past was a death sentence for someone who became an assassin; and when he met Johnny again, years after having shared that one class that was apparently the catalyst to everything, he never thought of talking about Yuta if only because that would have been pointless that far away from college life.

Looking back in retrospect, Taeyong guesses he made many mistakes. Who knows what fate would have awaited him if he’d only done things differently, if Johnny hadn’t thought of him as lowly as he most probably had. The thought stirs rage back inside Taeyong’s ribcage and almost leaves him fuming—so he pushes it to the back of his brain, once again, and focuses on getting out of this mess as soon as possible.

A peaceful life, he won’t deny, sounds much more tempting than jail meals and cold cells for a lifetime.

Half of Johnny’s team, Taeyong already knows. Doyoung and Jaehyun have definitely changed, grown into sharper, more mature versions of themselves, but Taeyong would know how to recognize them anywhere in the world after having considered them to be his family in a moment way too far away from this one.

When Johnny barges into the room—which is more of a huge sort of parlor, filled to the brim with computers and screens and boards where to hang maps and paper sheets—with Taeyong and Yuta in tow, Jaehyun blatantly ignores them, only rising his head to stare at them for a second before going back to whatever work he was doing before. Kim Doyoung, though, has always been a different story, and so upon catching sight of Taeyong’s jet black hair and sharp cheekbones, he lets out a loud, incredulous chuckle accompanied by a shake of his head and says, “well, if it’s not the fucking traitor,” only to disappear behind a heavy door snapped shut a second after.

“Guess I’m not very welcomed in your team,” Taeyong says with a roll of his eyes, both incredibly annoyed and reluctantly hurt at the way the people he once considered his closest friends have unreasonably turned their back to him, “this is going to work just amazingly, I can already tell.”

“You like to talk a little bit too much,” Johnny sighs, walking over to sit down on one of the office chairs at the back of the room, “Introduce yourselves, guys. Let’s give Lee Taeyong a warm welcome to our team.”

Taeyong would argue he doesn’t want a warm welcome. In fact, he would be more than happy to just sit back and wait until it’s his turn to do something instead of having to… bond, or whatever it is Johnny expects him to do, with the rest of the members of his team.

Before he has time to voice that preference, though, he’s met with two guys approaching him, and Yuta is quick to leave his side and leave him alone before the lions. How nice of you, Taeyong bitterly thinks, but plasters on his best business smile and says, “Hey, I’m Taeyong. I guess it’s nice to meet you.”

“Kim Jungwoo,” the taller one introduces himself, soft brown hair parting over his forehead as he shakes his head, “and this is Donghyuck—”

“— _Haechan_! You can call me Haechan,” the blond sharply cuts Jungwoo, “I thought we were supposed to keep our identities a secret, genius!”

“I mean, I’m part of the team too, right?” Taeyong chuckles, “I would say there is no need to… use codenames or anything like that.”

“Yeah, exactly. My nickname is stupid, too, so I’d say we’re safe to use our names,” Jungwoo laughs like a warm bath after a long day, welcoming and comforting in the most strange of ways, “anyways, welcome to this madness, Taeyong. From what we’ve heard, I guess you already know how this whole thing works, so. Good luck.”

“Yeah, good luck,” Donghyuck repeats, eyebrows raised as he gives Taeyong a once over head to toe, “to all of us, really. I’m not really all that confident about the heist this time.”

“And that is exactly what I didn’t want to hear,” Johnny calls out loudly from the other side of the room, making Taeyong roll his eyes yet once again, “get back to work, c’mon. Taeil and I will fill Taeyong in on all the details once he comes back.”

“Ah, how lucky of me,” Taeyong sarcastically grins, sighing as he looks back at Jungwoo and Donghyuck, “guess I’ll see you guys around. I don’t think I have much choice, anyways.”

Jungwoo laughs again, and Donghyuck just chuckles before turning on his heels to leave. “Good luck, Taeyong,” Jungwoo says yet once again, and then he too returns to where Taeyong guesses he was before.

From the back of the room, Johnny looks at him expectantly; and so against his own wishes, Taeyong walks over to him and plops down on a chair next to him.

“Let’s get started, shall we?”

Over the course of the next few hours Taeyong drinks two big cups of coffee—courtesy of one very gentle Yuta—and learns mostly everything there is to know about Johnny’s new team and the target of their next heist.

With Yuta having become the one missing piece of Johnny’s money laundering scheme for his potential gallery opening one day, Jaehyun still in charge of mapping and studying the places they should break into and Doyoung ever Johnny’s right hand and tactical strategy mastermind, Taeyong only needs to learn about the three new additions to the team.

As it is, he learns that Kim Jungwoo is a computer engineer-turned-hacker that Doyoung knew from the firm where he used to work before their grand escape from Seoul, and whom they recruited right after Taeyong was forcefully made to flee their lives. Lee Donghyuck, who used to go by the name of Haechan before they found him, was yet another thief Johnny himself encountered during one of his heists, who threatened to endanger Johnny’s whole plan and thus ended up being recruited to be a part of their complex ordeal. He’s the one tasked with finding out where the money is before the robbery and also offers support for Johnny’s own immersions in target grounds, and Taeyong feels a strange tug inside his chest at the way that used to be him back in the day, when things were still more difficult but certainly happier than they surely are now.

Moon Taeil is also a new member on board of Johnny’s insane enterprise. In charge of profiling their targets and keeping tabs on them once the heist is set into motion, he’s the one who introduces the details of Byun Baekhyun—Korean businessman now settled in Japan with too many ties to illegal, untraceable deals that have made him rich without anyone being really able to pinpoint how, and avid collector of illegal pieces of art he uses to lure in different criminal that only help increase his wealth—to Taeyong, handing him a heavy file that contains all the things he’d already explained with a tight smile and a quiet, “I hope you can really make things work, you know. We had run into one thick wall with him before Doyoung thought of contacting you.”

“Doyoung?” Taeyong asks, eyebrows raised in surprise as he glances over at Johnny, “It was Doyoung’s idea to get me out of fucking jail?”

“It was,” Johnny shrugs, “you already knew he’s always been the one in charge of the actual strategic plan. But I guess I thought you were our best option too, even with all the risk you suppose.”

“Oh, so now I’m a risk to bear,” Taeyong fumes, eyes rolling as he turns away from Johnny, “I already know I’ve always been just a piece for you to use, but you really have a way to make me feel like one mindless object, don’t you?”

“Whatever you say, Taeyong,” Johnny’s voice is tired as he waves Taeil away, and Taeyong watches him leave with a smile thrown his way, “go through that file and come up with something before tomorrow morning, so we can start discussing the details of your plan. We don’t have much time before having to start with the actual stealing.”

“Oh, but of course, oh Captain,” Taeyong sighs heavily, “when are you planning to do it anyways?”

“Exactly a month from today, actually,” Johnny’s smirk returns to its rightful place stretched right over his lips, “so get to work, Taeyong. I believe there’s a lot at stake with this one for us both.”

Taeyong doesn’t say goodbye before he kicks the chair away and leaves the room with the file in his hands, but he guesses Johnny understands how he’s deserving of that. After all, he too departed without farewell three years ago.

When Yuta walks Taeyong to the one that’s going to be his room in this luxurious, five-star hotel he apparently owns, in a floor reserved only for Johnny’s team to use as headquarters for their plan, he places a gentle hand on Taeyong’s shoulder and says, “You have no idea how happy I am to see you again, Yong.”

“Same here,” Taeyong replies, and it’s the first genuine smile he’s mustered in the whole day, “I’m sorry things had to be that way back then.”

“You’re all forgiven,” Yuta shakes his head and that, too, is gentle when directed at him, “I’m just so glad you’re safe. When I learnt what was of you… Dude, I’ve been worried for far too long.”

“It’s fine,” Taeyong mumbles, and the last bits of humanity left inside his bones cling to his heart like a lifeline—remind him that it’s okay to feel, too, despite everything. Yuta is not a threat, or so he guesses, so he lets down his guard and tells him, “I’m just glad you’re here. I’m… it’s hard, being alone all this time.”

“You’re safe now, Yong,” Yuta smiles, “And you’ve got us. We won’t let anything happen to you, and as long as you have me… I hope you won’t feel alone.”

I hope so too, Taeyong doesn’t say. Instead, he returns the smile and squeezes Yuta’s hand over his shoulder, and then says, “Hey, when you’re done doing whatever it is that you do for Johnny… well, wanna have a drink?”

The look he receives in return is so familiar that it eases off a hundred years’ worth of weight from Taeyong’s chest—reminds him that maybe there’s still a chance to make things right with a friend this second time.

“My treat, man,” Yuta smirks, “It’s my hotel, after all.”

***

Losing your trust in someone is one awful feeling—cold on the heart, sick on the throat, cracks lining up your bones when there’s proximity, threatening to break, aching to explode. Taeyong experiences it first hand in both directions of the crime and none is sweeter than the other, a sourness he can’t wash away from his tongue despite endlessly trying to swallow it down with liquor.

Doyoung slams an iPad down on the table at which Taeyong is sitting alone in the big room they use as a main office, revising the information he and Taeil have so far gathered about Byun Baekhyun one late evening, and the jump Taeyong’s heart takes into his throat is not caused by the sudden noise but by the way they’re both alone in the same room for the first time in years.

“Have a look at this,” Doyoung says curtly, index finger pointing at a picture of the entrance to a club, “Baekhyun booked a VIP booth in this club for tomorrow night.”

“How am I supposed to get in there, though?” Taeyong asks, eyes fixed on the bright screen and not on Doyoung’s face, resentment against him not a strong enough force to drown the creeping feeling of unease clawing at his ankles when he hears Doyoung sigh, “Have we thought of anything?”

“You clearly haven’t, even though it should be your job,” Doyoung jabs, taking away his tablet and holding it against his chest—not unlike a shield, Taeyong thinks, “but _I_ have. You’ve got an entry to the VIP balconies area, shouldn’t have no problem walking inside.”

“Right,” Taeyong replies, and the word feels thick inside his mouth; leaves itself uncomfortably plastered against his gums and makes it hard to swallow, to look up at Doyoung when he says, “Thanks, Doie. I heard—”

“That’s Doyoung to you,” he snaps back, feral in a way Taeyong had once only been used to see when a plan was at stake, but never directed towards another member of the team, “You might have heard I was the one to suggest we bring you back, but listen here, I do _not_ trust you, get it? You almost ruined everything once, you have _no idea_ how much you messed us up, so don’t you fucking dare believe not even for a second that we’re _friends_.”

Taeyong knows himself upside down, inside out, and so he knows he’s what most would call almost fearless, never afraid to speak up. It’s taken him getting to this moment, where Doyoung looks as ready to stab him as he looks painted to look Taeyong in the face, to find himself at a loss of words—unknowing about what to tell him, how to explain he got it all wrong, that it was Taeyong that was betrayed, that he was once part of his home.

It’s something else he will hold against Johnny, deep inside the cave of his chest where years of piled up anger await to be unleashed, one day, when they’re both safer than today.

“I,” Taeyong tries, and receives a roll of Doyoung’s eyes in return, “I know you might not trust me now, just like how I’m not all that sure I can trust you, either—”

“How can you fucking _dare_ to say that after—”

“—but I swear, Doyoung, that I’m gonna prove to you just how seriously I take my job, until you all realize the mistake you made with me back on that day. I swear on my own head,” Taeyong keeps his eyes on Doyoung’s the whole time, even long after he’s done talking, just to see if his words truly reach him, if he’s managed to get through his walls.

Doyoung leaves without a word after that, but his silence screams louder than any word he could have said.

Still, Taeyong slumps back into his seat and runs a hand over his face, thumbing at the dark bags under his eyes, and wonders not for the first time since he turned eighteen if life is really worth all this pain.

Taeyong starts with the fieldwork right on the night he’s sent to the club where Byun Baekhyun sits like a king on his throne at the VIP booth he’s booked, right like how Doyoung said it would be, and the adrenaline that keeps thrumming wildly through Taeyong’s bloodstream when he returns home after quite a fruitful mission serves him as a gentle reminder of the way he’s always enjoyed the spy work greatly over the more violent variants he’s often found himself wrapped into.

It only becomes more interesting from then on, with Taeyong pretending to casually encounter Baekhyun in several different situations until he manages to keep his attention all for himself, slowly dragging him into his web of lies and seduction that have never once failed to work in his favour. Taeyong, with his hair dyed the prettiest shade of blond, his irresistible face and his his alluring speech slowly wrap their target around his finger, until he manages to score a date that is sure to bring them everything they’ve been looking for—an invitation to the gallery and an opportunity to gain deeper insight into the illegal businesses Baekhyun deals with.

All throughout the process of seducing him, though, Taeyong finds himself having to deal with Johnny Suh much more than he would have liked to, and it makes his heart wail in confused ache; waves of anguish breaking against his ribcage as tender memories make themselves present and mingle with resentment, reminding him of how safe it once felt to trust Johnny, of how painful it is to find themselves having lost even that, too, selfish want leading them to this place where looking at each other almost hurts as much as being ran through with the sharpest of swords.

Because Johnny ruined the best thing Taeyong ever had—their relationship and the comfort that came with feeling yourself at home surrounded by your friends, only to leave Taeyong to his fate after calling the _police_ on him, as if Johnny’s own hands weren’t dirty too, as if Taeyong hadn’t bared his heart to him to tell him _why_ things had to be that way, _why_ he had to become an assassin despite how it ate away at his very soul; and for that Taeyong he will never forgive him; but Johnny also gives Taeyong a second chance even if he hadn’t wanted it in the first place, lets him meet Jungwoo and Taeil and Donghyuck and become a part of something again, promises to keep him safe even long after the heist is over, and Taeyong—

Taeyong knows what Johnny’s face looks like from every angle—the sharp eyes and hard-set jaw when he focuses on creating a plan, the goofy smile and gentle laugh whenever he’d crack a silly joke, the gesture of pure bliss he used to make when he emptied himself inside Taeyong and left them both panting, lost in each other in the most loving of ways. Still, a lifetime away from their first meeting in back in college, years after Taeyong spared his life only to become his most important person when they lived together in Seoul, despite treason and betrayal and haunting memories of their shared past, whenever Taeyong looks at Johnny’s face at the end of a tiring day, when he’s all soft around the edges and sleepy enough to forego his constant taunting to Taeyong’s words and to thank him yet again for his hard work, he’s reminded of how much he loved him—the most solid of anchors, the safest of shelters, the true love of Taeyong’s life if he’s ever been allowed to have one.

And if Taeyong dreams of Johnny most nights when he goes to sleep in his incredibly, undeservingly comfortable hotel bed; if he dreams of his laughter and his smile and of his hands on his skin and his tongue inside his mouth, it’s only a dream too far away from his reach, for the real Johnny would never look at Taeyong like that again, deceived by his selfish beliefs of Taeyong being a heartless demon of sorts.

In the morning, he’ll pretend it never happened, face the day with the weight of chains made up of regrets heavy around his neck and think to himself that, for someone who ruined Taeyong’s life, Johnny Suh sure is one beautiful nightmare to be haunted by.

“Do you really have to _supervise_ how I dye my fucking hair?” Taeyong snarls as he catches Johnny staring at him through the mirror in his room’s bathroom, seemingly more interested in seeing Taeyong bleaching his roots than in the documentation they were going through together, “Cause I surely don’t enjoy that paternalism you seem to have going with me lately.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Johnny groans, returning to the papers he splayed on the table in front of him, “I hope Donghyuck gets here soon, I can’t fucking stand how pissy you get when it’s just us both discussing things alone.”

“I told you to leave until he arrived cause I was going to dye my fucking hair,” Taeyong hisses, “It was you who chose to colonize my room and mess with my calm. And I’m not the one who gets _pissy_ , genius. That’s all you.”

“Whatever,” Johnny sighs, reclining himself into the seat of the small couch in Taeyong’s assigned room, “How did the date thing go?”

“I’d rather talk about this with Taeil,” Taeyong replies without missing a beat, toweling dry his perfectly dyed hair, “he’s much nicer to talk to than you are.”

“Too bad I want you to talk about it with me, then,” Johnny grins back, and that self-satisfied smile makes Taeyong’s chest tighten in that eerie way he wouldn’t know how to explain, “Taeil reports to me anyways, so it’s just saving us a lot of time.”

“You’re so smart when you want to, aren’t you?” Taeyong rolls his eyes, turning to wash his hands as he speaks, “The date went well. I’ve been playing the dumb blond role exceptionally well, he most likely didn’t suspect a single thing when I brought up being passionate about art and museums.”

“I’m sure you have,” Johnny taunts, and Taeyong hates himself for recognizing the tilt in his voice as something playful, “What’d he say to that?”

“He said he’d give me a surprise next time, so I’m hoping it will be that damned invitation to the gallery. We’re meeting again for lunch on Tuesday,” he hums, tidying up the bathroom counter and then blurting out, “and then we went back to his penthouse and he fucked me until he fell right asleep. Then I checked his phone, and it’s as Jungwoo had said—there’s going to be a deal going on at the gallery in two days, so I calculate he’s thinking about bringing me to play the pretty wifey role then.”

The room falls into a strange sort of silence then, and when Taeyong finally exits the ensuite, he finds Johnny’s jaw set in a hard line as he stares at a paper sheet he cannot be reading, for it is turned upside down.

If Taeyong didn’t know better, he would dare say Johnny looks _jealous_ , as if that were something he’s still allowed to be after everything that happened. He knows better, but he still believes it all the same, and the knowledge stirs a fuzzy feeling in Taeyong’s veins he wishes he knew how to turn off; an old song sung to the tune of past lives and buried corpses of love and desire, impossibility personified right before his eyes.

“We never talked about you having to resort to _that_ to gather information, Taeyong,” Johnny speaks up then, and he sounds more serious than Taeyong’s heard him today, “You should have told us—”

“I know that. I did it because I wanted to,” Taeyong says then, sensing the way the conversation is shifting towards a place he’s not sure he wants to navigate with Johnny tonight, “Baekhyun is hot, and it was a good opportunity. It would have almost been offensive if I’d said no, when I so clearly wanted it.”

“You wanted it?” Johnny chuckles, incredulous, and it ticks Taeyong off the wrong way, “He’s your fucking _target_ , c’mon.”

“Well, I fucking did, so what?” Taeyong bites back, “You don’t have a say on what I do or not do with myself anymore, so take the info and shut the fuck up.”

“Oh, of fucking course I don’t, if only because I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you if it wasn’t because of this,” Johnny raises the volume of his voice, standing up to tower over Taeyong with his height, “I don’t give a shit about you, just how you have _never_ given one about me or anyone else in this team, you rat.”

 _So this is where the conversation is going, then,_ Taeyong thinks bitterly, and he finds, with the ever familiar sour taste of knowing something without even being aware of it, that he’d always known this moment would arrive—when he can finally throw at Johnny’s face every single one of the mistakes that have led them here, when Taeyong can’t stand being around him without being reminded of both gentle hands and cruel words, when Johnny claims to hate him yet cannot stay away from him.

“You don’t scare me no matter how big and buff you want to act, Johnny,” Taeyong laughs, hands closing into tight fists as anger bubbles hot up his throat, rage drumming harshly against his lungs and making it hard to breathe without a scream, “How ironic that it’s you saying that, when it was _you_ who called the cops on me without a fucking reason when you got tired of using me, after I fucking _let you live_!”

“I know you were working for US Intelligence, you disgusting _liar_ ,” Johnny spits, and Taeyong pays no mind to the way his face is becoming red from the force with which he’s talking, “You were going to hand us over in exchange for money and acquittal, don’t you fucking dare say you were not because I _know_ you were! You only ever cared about the money, for fuck’s sake, you’ve always been a damned mercenary!”

“And that is where you’re wrong, you idiot,” Taeyong screams back, and his throat aches as it dries up and leaves him seething, aching to destroy every single thing still standing in this room, “you think you’re all high and mighty because I had to resort to killing to get by, huh? Isn’t that it? Big boy Johnny Suh, repulsed by a poor fucking guy that had no choice but to fall down the hole and become an assassin to surive, who hates criminals so much that he went and became one as well!”

“You know you don’t mean that,” Johnny hisses, and it’s only now, when he has to tilt his head up to hold Johnny’s gaze, that Taeyong realizes how close they’ve come to stand in the middle of his room, “You know this is not what it all is about, we do this for a reason, you told me you _believed in that reason_ —”

“You want to believe yourself above right and wrong so badly,” Taeyong says, almost delirious in his rage, “you think you’re superior to the rest of us because of your ideals, even though you know about my past, even though I told you about it all.” At that, a flash of hurt travels by Johnny’s face, frugal like a shooting star but still there, tangible like the taste of blood at the back of Taeyong’s tongue from scratching his own throat raw, “But you’re not the good guy you think you are, Johnny. Your motive is not and has never been more legitimate than mine because it is still selfish, no matter what you all want to believe. You’re not giving anything back to society because the world has never _given_ you anything, so in the end, you’re just taking for yourself.”

“You can say whatever you want, Taeyong, but none of it excuses the fact that you betrayed us, betrayed _me_ , after everything,” Johnny says, quieter this time, the calm before the storm already brewing in his bones.

“And I told you that you’re wrong,” Taeyong says back, a reply that’s as tired as it is sincere, wrapped up in sighs of hurt and unshed tears of what could have been, “Because you’re so selfish that you went and believed I would have done something like that without even stopping to ask me, without fighting back to see if it was true—and it was not, Johnny, it was not. I didn’t and would have never handed you over to them, not in a fucking million years, not even when I started working for them long after you were gone even though it costed be abandon and prison, and you know why? Because I loved and believed in you with every single fiber of my being, because I gave up and gave my everything to you, but I guess that not even that was enough for you.”

At that, Johnny is rendered silent for a moment long enough for peace to try and fight its way through the cracks in the walls, through the gaps under the doors. Taeyong watches him with red cheeks and gritted teeth, every muscle of his body pulled taut with tension where his chest is almost pressed to Johnny’s, and prepares himself for either another screaming match or a quiet retreat of tropes after yet another failed battle in this hopeless war.

Instead, what Taeyong gets is the one thing he had least expected, a fantasy most probably conjured by his mind product of the growing tension and not fact at all, except for the way it all feels very real in the most heart-wrenching of ways.

Johnny’s calloused fingers tilt up Taeyong’s chin without effort, and before Taeyong has time to notice it, their lips are already pressed together in the slowest of kisses, strength bleeding out of both their muscles into each other as Taeyong holds himself up by gripping Johnny’s shoulders and harshly licks into his mouth. Johnny doesn’t give beneath his insistent tugging, but he takes, takes, _takes_ from Taeyong until they wind up atop the covers of his bed, Taeyong almost breathless as he’s pressed to the mattress, needy hands gripping at each other; as they grind their hips together, as they bite their names in each other’s necks.

In the end, Taeyong guesses as he comes down from which won’t be the last of his highs that night, the fight of their lives comes down to this: he and Johnny melting into each other and pulling at every loose thread until there is nothing left but debris, burning in the fire but _oh_ , so delighted that there is no way to stop the way they ache for each other, want a stronger force than fear.

In the morning they will wake up in ruins, but that, too, Taeyong has come to expect. There would be nothing to be left if there was nothing at the beginning, but the heart wants, and so it takes.


	3. Chapter 3

Jaehyun lips are pressed together into a thin line as silence deafens Johnny’s ears with its high-pitched empty scream, and Johnny feels too much like a moth trapped into a clear see-through glass—observed, defeated, exposed to a light so bright that threatens to burn him alive.

He supposes it’s what he deserves, really, for fucking things up even further yet once again.

“So,” Jaehyun speaks up after what feels like lightyears worth of penitential scrutiny, “You fucked him.”

“Don’t make it sound like—look, he wanted it too, alright?” Johnny squirms uncomfortably, allowing himself to feel small and a little bit intimidated in the privacy of his room, where nobody but Jaehyun can see him, “It was just, you know. We were arguing, then screaming, then he started telling me about what really happened back then and before I realized I’d kissed him, but can you blame me? Like, shit, Jae, he’s just—he drives me crazy and he looked so… _hurt_ that I’d believed he betrayed us and—”

“And so you fucked him,” Jaehyun snorts, giving Johnny a shake of his head that leaves him feeling too much like a child about to get the scolding of a lifetime, “That’s the only thing I asked. You’ve got your reasons, man, I can’t say anything to that.”

“But,” Johnny says, vulnerable where everyone knows to find him steel hard, “Do you think—did I fuck up? Is it, do you think he’s going to do something reckless now like, I don’t know—”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun cuts him, sharp like a knife, “Stop it, alright? I think he’s given us zero reasons to believe he would _do something reckless_ , even if Doyoung is too proud to accept that we’d been wrong about Taeyong all along—by the way, don’t tell him I said that!—, so, really. Just act natural. It’s not like it was the first time you two have fooled around—.”

“Of course it wasn’t, but—” Johnny’s chest rises with the force of a deep breath expanding his lungs until they’re pressed uncomfortably against his ribcage, then deflates as he mumbles, “It’s not that I don’ trust him, I’m just so… fuck, Jaehyun, I’ve been so wrong about him all this time, I—he should hate me, he _probably_ hates me, and I thought I could live with that but I don’t.”

“You know,” Jaehyun sighs, eyebrows raised as he stares right into Johnny’s eyes, “talking is one deadly weapon. You should probably try to work things out properly this time.”

“Yeah,” Johnny gives, all his walls crumbled as he’s left to pick up the pieces, “I probably shouldn’t have left his room without saying anything this morning, but—I guess I was too scared to stay.”

And how could he not have been, after years of believing into a truth that was dismantled in a matter of seconds once it was portrayed in clear light, after having his own heart wretched right out of his chest and dissected by the one person who’d once known Johnny the best.

Working closely with Taeyong during the past weeks, Johnny will admit, has got his brain whirling itself into delirium, leading him to second-guess himself where normally there would have only been resolve. And Johnny knows himself a professional, an adult who needs to bear the weight of his responsibilities if only because everyone’s lives are at risk because of him and his plan, but when Taeyong lets his guard down and smiles; when he blesses Johnny’s chest with a cut-short laugh, when he looks at him like Johnny did not ruin his life—like he deserves forgiveness for not having trusted him, for having believed him a traitor when all Taeyong had ever felt was love; it is in those moments that he thinks, _“What I’d do to have you back”_ , that he prays, _“Let me make things right”_.

Johnny is not blind, and so he sees the evident way in which Taeyong rightfully resents him, and it would be a lie if he were to say that the feeling hadn’t been mutual right until yesterday. Because, right or wrong, Johnny and the rest had believed Taeyong a traitor, a liar that left them all to their fate, and even if there had been an undeniable trace of his old feelings towards him buried deep inside his chest, it all had been masked by the pain that came with thinking yourself used, with the anguish caused by the loss of the only person you’d ever thought to love.

But Taeyong—he’s hardworking and dedicated where he could have been careless and mad, had given his all to Johnny’s project yet once again despite the way Johnny’s always known him very capable to escape the hotel and their lives at night without leaving a trace, and for that Johnny can only be grateful; because second chances seem to be their recurrent theme, and yet it never gets old, for it always turns out for the best even if the ending to their every story always remains unknown.

Maybe, Johnny bitterly thinks to himself, that is why having the truth thrown at his face had ended up with them both getting lost in between the sheets like wolves gone wild on a full moon night—because, somewhere he wouldn’t know how to reach, Taeyong’s name is written right next to his.

And Johnny, ambitious as he is, wants to see it—sign his name with blood and tie them together forever, if Taeyong will have him, if they get yet another chance.

Jaehyun sighs again, and it’s more of a sad sound than it is tired. “Just talk to him, really. You know what they say—old flames die hard and all that.”

***

The big parlor in the hotel’s eighth floor they have claimed as their main office is bursting with activity. Doyoung is discussing maps with Jaehyun while pointing out things in Jungwoo’s laptop screen, Donghyuck vividly discussing some probably important thing with Taeil, and Johnny is absolutely incapable of paying attention to any of that.

Taeyong is sitting right across from him on the table placed right in the middle of the room, drawing circles with a red marker over printed images of the pictures of Byun Baekhyun’s messages he took the night he slept in his penthouse, and Johnny feels an anxious prickling on his hands and feet that leaves his throat feeling closed under a tightening knot.

“This is what I talked to you about,” Taeyong finally says, then, index finger pointing to a string of characters on the right side of the page, “The deal is going to be closed tomorrow at the gallery, and I’m meeting with him tomorrow for lunch. He’s obviously planning to take me there—so I can offer tactical support as well. Doyoung will not listen to me, so _you_ should tell him.”

Taeyong’s face is seriously focused as he speaks, but there is a bruise already fading yellow on the curve of his jaw and Johnny aches to kiss it until it blossoms purple again, to ensure his mark on him never fades—to let Baekhyun and the rest of the world know that he’s Taeyong’s just as much as Taeyong is his, through thick and thin, if he’ll have him, forgive him for all his wrongs.

“Johnny,” Taeyong snaps, bringing him back from his certainly pleasant daydream, “We have almost no time to prepare this, c’mon. Fucking focus.”

“I’m focusing,” Johnny throws back as if on autopilot, snarky remarks bubbling up his throat from muscle memory, “You should be armed when you leave to go see him, that’s for sure. Donghyuck will cover for you shall anything happen once the heist gets started, but you need to be prepared just in case.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to stay there and do nothing while you guys do it,” Taeyong scoffs, appalled, “I want to help.”

“You’re already helping plenty by being there. You’re the _distraction_ , Taeyong, not the action man.”

“Right, of course,” Taeyong narrows his eyes, and the tone in his voice tells Johnny this is not going to be one easy fight, “because that is all you, isn’t it? We’re just your little dolls, but when the moment comes the spotlight is only yours.”

“You have to be kidding,” Johnny laughs humorlessly, hands closing into frustrated fists, “You know damn well none of this would be possible if even just _one_ of you were missing. It’s more complex than you’re making it look, and I know you know that.”

Taeyong holds his gaze like a lioness ready to devour its prey, but in the end he just returns to the papers without a word to be said.

As he tilts his head, Johnny can just make out the faint imprint of his hand around Taeyong’s throat from where they both let themselves get a little too carried away by desire last night, and blood rushes to his face in the most uncomfortable of ways.

Divine punishment, it must be, to be faced by the product of your sin so shamelessly.

“Hey, Yong,” Johnny says, softer this time, after a quiet while, “We should—Do you think we can go somewhere else to talk?”

“Why,” Taeyong hums, not even meeting his eyes, “I’m pretty good in here.”

“Because,” Johnny tries, and tries to will the blush on his cheeks to die, “there is something I would like to discuss in private.”

“We can talk about work in here all that you want, Johnny,” Taeyong is sharp as he cuts through him, his gaze piercing Johnny’s and leaving him utterly defenseless, “other things, I might not be interested in hearing.”

Johnny’s words die on his tongue at the disinterested shrug he gets in return to his try at opening his heart, and that, too, he supposes he deserves—the wilting of his soul, so familiar yet so strange, after all these years.

“Alright,” he says, yet another fallen commander, another lost battle he will never get to win, “Update me on your plan for tomorrow at the end of the day, then.”

Johnny’s exit from the room does not go unnoticed, for he makes sure to snap the door shut hard enough for the frame to rattle, hardwood crying out at his despair. He cannot say he cares, really, for inside him his every organ screams, _“You had this coming”_ , a tune he doesn’t know how to keep quiet anymore, _“You were selfish, you are selfish, there’s a special kind of place for monsters like you.”_

He can’t wait to find out about it, once the heist is over, once Taeyong is finally gone.

***

Johnny remembers the day of his first _almost public_ heist with Taeyong in his team as if it were yesterday.

It took them a while to plan it, tasked with stealing a jewel crown kept safe and undeclared inside a back closet _during_ an open reception in a museum, but Taeyong’s mind had been quick where Doyoung drew a blank and together they came up with a strategy so solid nobody noticed the crown stacked inside the inner pocket of Johnny’s coat as they left the building through the front door.

Getting inside the museum was easy enough for Johnny, for his friends have always been there when he’s needed a hand—or an ear, or an eye, any and everywhere, whenever it is. The network goes far beyond his reach, but it worked every time—still does today, so far away from that fairy tale-like moment, when they’re getting ready for their biggest heist yet.

They wore suits, that night, and Johnny could draw from memory alone the shape of Taeyong’s sinful waist under the perfect fit of his dress pants, the way his jacket hugged him in all the right places like a glove—a boy so beautiful he looked like he belonged in between the statues admired by the rest of the guests, the finest painting ever crafted, the ache to worship him embedded so deep in Johnny’s bones he couldn’t really bring himself to shake the silly smile on his face all night long. Because Taeyong looked like he belonged in that museum, but he too fit perfectly against Johnny’s side as they walked around the open space of the main gallery arm in arm, engraving into their brains the faces and the escapes and setting their plan into motion while the people they encountered whispered _“who are they”_ ’’s, a couple so perfect it almost seemed out of place.

Because they looked like they belonged anywhere but there, surrounded by exquisite art most of the attendants would consider to be _boring_ —alone in a room, maybe, giving each other away in the darkness; on an altar, one day, rings around their fingers like a ticket straight to Heaven.

Still, the night had worked out perfectly—ended up with the crown in Johnny’s pocket and the money in Taeyong’s, and then later, as it had already become tradition after the day they took the fall from the window and, concluded with Taeyong crying out Johnny’s name pressed against the opaque window of their hotel room.

It’s been four years since then but, to this day, Johnny can still taste, if he so as closes his eyes, the anguish he felt that first time putting Taeyong in the front line, the way the burden of his wellbeing was heavy on Johnny’s shoulders and didn’t let him breathe until they were safe and sound back in each other arms far away from the place of the crime.

If he didn’t know better, Johnny would say he only cared so deeply because he was already in love with Taeyong back then, he would say that it is impossible for that feeling of desperate hopelessness to return to his chest because what they had between them has long been dead.

But Johnny knows better, and so he accepts the truth for what it is and does with it the only thing he can think of—sits in the emptiness of Taeyong’s room, surrounded by his smell and the few things he still owns, and waits for him to report from his lunch date with Byun Baekhyun, giving them the signal to begin with their mission tonight; and the anguish washes over him in a violent torrent, reminding him that it is like this that all good things tend to end.

As always, it all is perfectly planned.

Doyoung is already immersed in his role as the director of the headquarters’ room, practiced movements he by now knows by heart as he directs each of the members to check something, to ensure things are going according to plan, _“Is security down, Jungwoo?”_ , _“Are we sure they’ll be using that door, Jaehyun?”_. Johnny trusts him with his whole life and then some more, so he leaves them to their own devices and awaits for the moment in which he must jump into action to arrive quick and without problems.

Taeyong left without a goodbye, and it still tasted as acrid as it once had the last time they parted ways. Johnny had tried to keep him back for one more second, but Taeyong would not budge, and so he watched him go with the knot on the throat he’s by now grown so accustomed to.

Taeyong’s mission is to stay glued to Baekhyun’s side until they arrive at the gallery. Ignorant as he was feigning to be, Taeyong would alert the team of their situation and then ask to use the restroom upon arrival of the other part of the deal, and that would be when the fun would start. Jungwoo would cancel the security keeping the place sealed shut, and while Johnny worked his best to pack the art pieces and bring them outside in a time window of twelve minutes, Donghyuck would open the safe and steal the money away. _“Classic strategy,”_ Doyoung had proudly claimed during their last review of the plan last night, _“has always worked, will work this time.”_

When Johnny starts feeling too distressed to stay alone in the room anymore, he exits and starts walking down the corridor with his phone held tight in his damp hand, stomach closing as he begs for everything to work out alright.

The loud sound of his ringtone startles him right before he can open the door to the room where everyone awaits—a bad omen, black crows flying in circles above their heads, providence leaving Johnny’s side for the first time in years.

***

When Taeyong returns, agitated out of his bones as his eyes brim with anger at their plan going wrong, Johnny can’t bring himself to look at him in the eyes.

“I don’t know that the fuck happened,” Taeyong says loudly as he pushes the door to the room open hard enough for it to slam against the wall, and the sound echoes into the eerily silent space despite it being filled with the totality of their team, “he was supposed to bring me to the gallery, I fucking _know_ he was planning on it, I don’t understand why—”

“Taeyong,” Johnny says, and it cuts through the tense atmosphere like a knife, leaving the weight of a pointy stone lodged in between his larynx and his lungs, “It’s over. Please sit down.”

Taeyong stares at him with fierce eyes and a clenched jaw, but a look around the forlorn expressions on everyone else’s faces gives him enough of a hint to do as told. When he sits across from him, Johnny has to close his eyes to try and ground himself— _think of something, anything, c’mon. This cannot be it._

“What do you mean it’s over,” Taeyong asks, impatient, and Johnny hates himself for knowing him well enough to pick on the anxious ticks already showing in the way he bounces his right leg, in how he starts pulling at the dried skin of his lips with his teeth.

But over it all, Johnny hates himself for letting things come to this point, when the weight of Taeyong’s destiny—of _everyone’s_ destinies falls on his shoulders, the biggest threat any of them had had to face yet.

“I got a call,” Johnny says, then, and he has to clear his throat, for the words come out half-choked, giving away how tight his chest feels, “I—the South Korean government tracked us down. Tracked you down, more specifically, and then found out where we are.”

“That’s impossible,” Taeyong snaps, and it’s easy to recognize the way fear wraps itself around his ribcage like a coat and bleeds into his shaky words, “it’s impossible, they would have found me much sooner if they’d been tracking me since I left prison, which is the last time I was in their custody, so how—”

“Byun Baekhyun,” Taeil speaks up, guilt making his shoulders slump down where he’s sitting next to Donghyuck, “He found out who you are and made a deal with them—so they’ll leave him and his businesses alone.”

“He put a tracker on your phone while you slept two nights ago, Taeyong,” Jungwoo mumbles, running a quick hand through his hair that leaves his brown locks disheveled, “We—I should have checked for something when you returned, but I didn’t—I didn’t think he would have known, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault,” Jaehyun is quick to cut through his rant, eyes piercing as he looks right across the room at Johnny, and so he knows he’s meant to continue, “tell him everything, c’mon. We don’t have much time.”

“What else is there to say,” Taeyong almost cries out, his fingers gripping his thighs over his dress pants tight enough to leave the soft cloth creased.

 _“Aren’t you tired of your boy toy already?”_ they’d also said, but Johnny keeps that bullet lodged into his body and doesn’t let it bleed out—for he needs to focus and not let himself be distracted by constant jabs to old wounds, reminders of a past he’s not so proud of.

And more than anything in the world, Johnny wishes for it all to be the product of a bad dream; for them to be able to wake up in the morning tangled into each other without the burden of their lifetime legacies weighing them down into the depths of the ocean, leaving them to drown. “They told me they’ve been working with Intel and police teams overseas and that like this they finally have proof of us—of _me_ being behind the heists, and of having helped you escape and, yeah. You know it all. We’ll rot in jail for it, unless—”

He cannot bring himself to say it. The way Taeyong’s face is transparent like glass for the first time in too many years for Johnny to count hurts more than taking a bullet to the heart at point blank would, for he looks vulnerable like the kid he never got to be, nothing like the ruthless criminal life made out of him. And Johnny’s hands burn as he aches to reach over and hug Taeyong’s worries away, to let him know he’ll keep him safe just as he promised, but as much as it hurts, it’s not something he can do now, if only because he doesn’t know _how_.

That is why his voice is small as he mumbles, out into the open of the room for everyone to grasp, “Unless we hand you in.”

The quietness that washes over them then is almost deafening. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny can make out the shape of Jaehyun gripping harshly the edges of a table, of Jungwoo curling into himself where he sits on a rotating chair as if he’d be able to make himself disappear like this. And disappear, Johnny would like—getting out of this place, somehow, leaving to go far away enough for no hands to be able to grab Taeyong or any of them.

If only to put a stop to the silence that threatens to crush them under its weight, Johnny keeps speaking. “The heist has been busted as it is, so we’ve got two options. Hand you in and get a chance to escape, or go to jail together and who knows what then.”

“I,” Taeyong’s mouth gapes as he tries to speak, but he seems unable to voice his thoughts, and Johnny, above everything else, laments every step he ever took that’s led them to this place.

Because it was him that left Taeyong behind, once, that left him to join American Intelligence only to be abandoned at last; and so, ultimately, it is his fault that the South Korean Government caught him and then came on their heels, putting everything Johnny has ever fought for at risk—his project and, most importantly, his team, which is his second family, the one that’s made him able to keep supporting his first, the one that’s never once left his side.

Because it was him who made Taeyong dubious of his every choice, who’s responsible for the way he’s looking at Johnny utterly _terrified_ because he expects him to hand him in like last time, without questioning, as if he really believes Johnny has never loved him the way he truly does.

Yuta barges into the room next, locking the door behind him and throwing the most feral glare at Johnny’s way, smelling of danger all the way through the space. “Japanese forces are not here yet, won’t get here for at least fifteen minutes—trust me on that one, so we’ve got _that_ much to make a choice before it’s all over.”

Johnny’s stomach churns as it turns into itself, anguish and distress threatening to make him faint and ruin it all even further than it’s already been ruined. Across from him, Taeyong is trembling like a leaf under the grip of Yuta’s hand on his shoulder, and it’s nothing but a cruel show of the portrait Johnny painted with his own hands—the ill fate of every single person he’s ever loved and cared for, despite his best efforts, only because of his choices.

“I’m—” Johnny tries, but the words die on his tongue with the putrid taste of defeat— “I’m so—”

“What you are is stupid if you think it all is over just like that,” Doyoung suddenly snaps, standing up and drawing in the attention of everyone, “who the fuck are you, Johnny, huh? Aren’t you _The Thief_? How can you accept defeat this easily?”

“Doyoung, it’s fucking impossible to turn this around,” Jaehyun hisses from where he moves to stand next to him, “They’ve _found_ us, so—”

“So what, huh?” Doyoung cuts him, glaring harshly at him before returning his gaze to Johnny, “What does it matter if they’ve found us? We had a plan—and if that plan didn’t work, then we need to have _another_ plan.”

“What plan do you want us to make when we’re mere minutes away from being put in a fucking _cell_ , Doyoung,” Johnny grunts, fists closed tight as he tries to control an imminent frustrated outburst.

“We don’t have to _make_ it, genius, it’s already been made. It’s all in your guide, after all,” Doyoung snarls, looking right over at Taeyong. When their eyes meet, Johnny thinks he sees Doyoung’s expression soften into something warmer—a gesture he hadn’t directed to Taeyong in years, so keen on keep hating him despite him returning to the team, “We’re not going to hand Taeyong in, for _anything_ in the world, you hear me? He’s with us, and so we keep him _safe_. And I, for one, do not want to go to jail. I’m too pretty for that.”

“Hand me in,” Taeyong says then, desperation gripping at his throat, “please, Doyoung, it’s my fault, shit, _Johnny, please_ , you can’t—”

“No,” Doyoung replies, unwavering, “We have a plan, and so we’re going to stick to it. The heist is gonna happen, and if they want to stop it they will have to do so over my dead body.”

“Oh, right, they _think_ we’re not going to do it, so it’s—” Jungwoo marvels, eyes wide open as he looks up at Doyoung.

“What in hell are you talking about,” Taeil cries, “They’re _coming_.”

“And so we’re leaving,” Donghyuck speaks for the first time since Johnny entered the room, confident like he’s yet to see any of them be, “right fucking now. C’mon, Yuta, it’s just like what I told you. Is the car ready?”

“Yeah,” Yuta says, swallowing thickly, “are you sure about that though? Can we trust it’ll be like that? We only have one try.”

“Sure as hell,” Donghyuck nods, then glares at Johnny and tells him, “Hyung. You know what you have to do.”

And it is the look in Donghyuck’s eyes—the way he’s so certain about what’s being expected of them by the authorities, the way in which his voice doesn’t waver as he addresses Johnny, that makes the light inside Johnny’s mind turn on and allows him to see everything in a clear light.

And suddenly, just like that, Johnny understands what he has to do—and despite the situation and the apparent hopelessness of it all, he feels himself able to save everyone yet one last time.

“Let’s get going, c’mon, _c’mon_!” he screams as he stands, and then turns to face Taeyong and offer him a hand, “Please, please trust me. I swear I will keep you safe—I swear it on everything I’ve ever loved.”

And Taeyong’s eyes, despite his fierce façade and the way endless hurt has built a wall so thick around his heart it has become almost impossible to reach, are watery as they stare up at Johnny—a cry for help he would have never made if things hadn’t been this strained, ever so adamant on getting by on his own.

“I swear it on you, Taeyong,” Johnny whispers, “I’m not going to hand you in, just like how you never did during all these years, for the very same reason you and I know.”

“C’mon!” Yuta yells at them, the clock always ticking against them.

As he grabs Taeyong’s hand and tugs him away to run down the corridors towards where the special vehicle is parked, Johnny thinks that love truly does lead people into delirium, crazed plans becoming real in the blink of an eye.

***

_How to become an amazing thief 101: a side guide also by Johnny Suh._

_Step 1. Gain their trust_

“Inspector Hwang,” Johnny speaks into the mic of the hotel telephone the Korean police used to speak to him when they first contacted him about having found them, “Lee Taeyong is hiding somewhere inside the building where we are right now. We are ready to hand him over to you in exchange for acquittal—but for that, we’ll first need to catch him. He’s escaped every single one of the teams you’ve sent to catch him, but I believe he won’t be able to escape us. I ask you for fifteen minutes; after that, we’ll leave that bitch tight bound for you to capture. Sounds good?”

“If they don’t catch us they will have nothing against us. Nothing,” Doyoung avidly explains while Johnny talks, his hand wrapped tight around Taeyong’s forearm in which used to be their comfort sign, “Even if they suspect us, they will have no evidence, no proof of anything, so we better make this work.”

“Sure thing, Inspector Hwang,” Johnny is humming, using the kind of voice that leaves no room for questioning, “Ten minutes. Excellent. We’ll be ready in five, I bet.”

“I’ve put Taeyong’s phone inside a staff’s pocket, and Yuta’s going to make sure everything we had in the rooms disappears fast enough,” Donghyuck explains, and the low tone with which he speaks fits the dark atmosphere of the parking lot where they are hunching perfectly, “and Johnny right now just bought us enough time to make the escape, so c’mon, _everyone_ follow me.”

“Wait, Yuta,” Taeyong says, and his eyes are desperate as he glances up at his friend, “You can’t stay here, we—”

“No, Yong, I have to stay back,” Yuta sighs, and his hands are tender when they rest on Taeyong’s cheeks, “I need to go somewhere else for our alibi, alright? Need to tell them I knew nothing when they come looking for me—that I just own the place but was never here, but in Osaka all along.”

“Yuta,” Johnny intervenes, and the words are painful to say—stay lodged in his throat for a beat too long, leave a bloody trail behind as they pour out, “please, please be careful. We’ll always—just give us a call, we’ll always have your back.”

“I know,” Yuta smiles, Johnny’s oldest friend, and the sight is soothing like a balm for his heart, “It’s not goodbye, idiots. C’mon, leave now before it’s too late—I’ll see you soon, huh? Yong, don’t turn this into another six years, will you?”

And so, just like that, the masterplan of Johnny’s life starts.

_Step 2. Don’t draw unwanted attention_

“Shit,” Jaehyun whistles, “I can’t believe it worked.”

“What do you mean you can’t believe it?” Doyoung huffs indignantly, “Of course it did! When has something we’ve planned ever not worked?”

“A couple hours ago with Taeyong, I’d say,” Jungwoo mumbles, and it draws a short laugh from the other three men that is more a product of distress than fun, but a laugh nevertheless, “Will Yuta be okay?”

“Yeah, of course he will,” Doyoung nods, and the curve of his smile carries a triumphant look that feels a little too early for how the four of them are huddled in the back of the laundry company’s corporate van they used as a masquerade to escape without anyone keeping their eyes on them, parked in a deserted parking lot in a side road outside the city, “It’s Yuta. He always manages to be okay—it’s just like he said, nobody can trace us back to him even if we stayed in the hotel. He’s the owner, not the one in charge of guests—and they won’t find us like this, so we’re all safe.”

“Doyoung, here,” Taeil says then, giving Doyoung’s sleeve a slight tug, “The communicator is blinking, c’mon. Let’s do this.”

“Amazing,” Doyoung grins with a clap of his hands, and under the dim light of the van’s lamp, he looks a bit too much like a maniac, “Show’s started, gentlemen. Let’s do this.”

_Step 3. Never reveal your secrets_

“Coast is clear,” the voice rumbles through the radio communicator, its waves impossible to be caught by the police, “go.”

“Ugh,” Donghyuck groans in return, and the way the sound mixes with the static through the device makes Johnny have to stifle a laugh against the back of his hand, “You’re so hot when you get all professional, Mark, I can’t wait to—”

“Dude, don’t say my name, c’mon!” Mark whines, and it takes Johnny interrupting the line with a cough to get them both back in focus. “Alright, there are no patrols approaching the gallery for now—they truly believe you’re still at the hotel, probably think you’re gonna hold hostages to escape or something like that. It’s all thanks to Taeyong’s phone being left there, honestly.”

Mark Lee is, a matter of fact, a blessing in disguise.

Johnny remembers the days when he was still a part of their team—sweet and sharp, a too intelligent kind of know-it-all kind of kid that was never proud enough of himself to come across as narcissistic, but who had so much knowledge and control over every single thing that could come to their minds that he did the job of a whole team of informants in the bat of an eye.

It was no surprise, really, that after winning in thirty-two seconds a challenge launched by his college to break down the security systems protecting its exam files, agencies both local and from abroad started bidding on him.

And Johnny, who’s always seen Mark as the younger brother he’s never got to have, has never been anything other than proud of him—hugged him the tightest when Mark left them with a job awaiting for him in the goddamned Interpol and an oath to never, ever get in their way and help them if they ever needed him to.

Taeyong, Taeil and Jungwoo arrived after his departure, and so Johnny kept Mark a secret in the safe of his chest if only to protect him. Lee Donghyuck, though, is another story—sharp in the ways Johnny sometimes lacks, asking him too many questions that led to him meeting Mark under _sworn secrecy circumstances_ and then, without anyone really understanding how, ended up with them falling madly in love.

(“ _Fucking ridiculous,”_ Doyoung had scoffed one day, _“a boyfriend in the Interpol? What is this, a dream come true?”_

 _“Hey,”_ Jaehyun’s everlasting pout, _“I’m right here, you know!”_ )

“Sweet,” Johnny hums, “Security is still down, just like Jungwoo said. Taeyong and I are entering in three, two, now.”

The moment Johnny pushes his communicator into the side piece of his belt is his very own universal signal for the start of something grand. The door to the gallery opens without them having to press a password into the pad on its side, and Jungwoo cheerily re-confirms them that no alarms of any kind have gone off at their breach.

“You should’ve been an actor,” Taeyong chuckles as they swiftly make their way down corridors of walls lined with pictures and paintings, paying them no mind as they approach their real objective, “you’ve always been a little bit too fond of theatrics.”

“You’re one to talk,” Johnny smiles, the familiar adrenaline of starting a theft already running through his veins and reminding him why he loves it so much—how good it feels to fight for what you believe it’s right, even more if it will help someone. Someone like the guy you’ve been in love with for far too long to deny. “But I guess I am, after all, you know. What we’re doing is a little bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Stealing away _a hundred twenty-seven_ art pieces while police forces from all around the world chase after us? I would say it is a bit dramatic, yeah,” Taeyong snorts, and for all they’ve put each other through, Johnny’s never felt more relief than he does watching him smile as he lets himself bask in what he does best: walk with Johnny the path towards their dreams, even if they’re different, even if they are set to draw them apart one day.

“Well, you know what they say,” Johnny hums, kicking open without trouble the already unlocked door to the back room where the treasure is hidden—and there it is, paintings and jewels shining in their splendor all for them to have, their greatest heist so far, “we’re here for a reason, aren’t we?”

“I guess we are,” Taeyong smiles at Johnny, ancient diamond earrings dangling from his fingers, and he looks like a mirage—too beautiful to be true, too exquisite to touch, and yet, “How is it that you like to call it?”

Johnny’s smile mirrors Taeyong’s own—for he cannot believe himself so well-known, inside out, upside down; and then he wonders, for a brief second, about what the ending to this story will be—if the bells will ring at midnight or if they’ll give them a few more seconds, just to fix it all.

“What I like to call it, huh?” Johnny grins, then shakes his head. “Well, you already know it all. C’mon, let’s get this rolling.”

_Step 4. Master distraction_

While Donghyuck is agile and quick like Johnny’s met no other, there are certain skills that come from experience and experience alone.

Donghyuck’s constant updates on his situation blurting out of the communicator strapped to his waist tell Johnny that things are going, by some sort of miracle he’s not yet too sure he can believe to be true, according to plan. Doyoung is delighted, giving sharp orders and keeping tabs on everything as best as he can given that he’s stuck in the back of a van, and while Donghyuck’s constant chit-chat with Mark as he retrieves the money from the safe Jaehyun located being kept in an office on the other wing of the gallery floor is not ideal, it’s yet another show of how right things are working out.

“Got it,” Donghyuck claims, “There’s an awful lot of money here, shit. This dude’s fucking _rich_.”

“That’s the whole point of this, Hyuck,” Johnny snorts, zipping closed yet another bag full of jewels and turning to check how Taeyong is doing with his own side of the room, “Now leave quick, c’mon. Leave the rest to us.”

“Are you sure?” Donghyuck asks, his quick steps echoing through the radio and telling them all he’s already fleeting the place, “I can stay to cover your back—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Johnny assures, walking over to help Taeyong put yet another painting inside a cardboard box and checking his wristwatch for a second, “We’ve got this, now be quick—we’re gonna be _doing it_ in seven minutes, make sure you’re all already gone by the time it goes off.”

“Got it,” everyone replies, and Johnny turns off the communication for now as he and Taeyong finish packing away all the items they came so far to retrieve.

It’s a sweet reminder of their past—teamwork never failing in its success, and the adrenaline of doing things like this together tying them so close together it had been horribly painful to cut it off when the moment came.

And Johnny—he doesn’t know what comes over him, really, what leads him to do it in a moment like this, but before he has time to notice his lips are already moving on their own, pushing out the words he’s tried to keep quiet all along. “Taeyong—I’m sorry. I never told you, but I’m really sorry for what I did, for—for not having listened to you, for not trusting you.”

Taeyong freezes for a moment, his heart skipping a beat inside his ribcage before he keeps up with his work with a shake of his head, “Johnny, c’mon. Not now.”

“Yes now,” Johnny insists, hauling a small statue into his arms and putting it yet into another bag, “What if there is no later? What if I lose you again, if I never get to tell you—God, I could never, Taeyong, just. You spared my life and then I almost ended yours, and now you’re here because of me and it’s a mess and—”

“Johnny, shut up,” Taeyong hisses, pushing a bag into his arms and looking into his eyes with the urgency of that who knows himself on the verge of a precipice, “We’ve got three minutes left, it’s not the time to—”

“To tell you I love you?” Johnny says, and for a second the earth stops in its motion, just a moment to stare at the both of them in the shadows of this room, “Because I do, I always have, and I—I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you, but I know you _trust_ me now and so I swear, Taeyong, that I’m not going to let anything happen to you no matter what I have to do, and if I could I—”

He doesn’t get to finish talking. Taeyong grips the front of his black shirt tight enough for his knuckles to go white, and then pulls him forward until they’re colliding against each other chest first, lips second.

It feels like fireworks are exploding inside Johnny’s ribcage as his hands cradle Taeyong’s waist, as he lets himself get lost in their kiss for the infimum break from reality they can allow themselves right now—so ethereal that, when their communicators come alive to tell them _“Thirty seconds!”_ , Johnny finds himself afraid of having dreamed it all.

“C’mon,” Taeyong urges, pulling Johnny along with him to the opposite side of the room, and Johnny lets himself be manhandled as if he weighs nothing, light without the burden of secrecy on his chest, “get behind this, c’mon.”

“Alright, it’s coming, ten, nine,” Doyoung screams into the radio, and it resonates all across the room, “ _God please let this work_ , four, three, two, one—”

_Step 5. Don’t leave any traces behind_

The explosive goes off on the exact second Doyoung’s voice dies in the communicator, and Johnny’s arms automatically reach to hold Taeyong close to his body in a subconscious attempt at protecting him from any possible harm.

The smell of fire and smoke is quick to fill their tonsils, and so they hurry to put on their breathing masks and then, not for the first time in the last month for Johnny—quite similarly to how he did during Taeyong’s rescue from Ganghwado Prison—, they hang the bags off their shoulders and together haul up the box containing the paintings to quickly make their way through debris and flames towards the back street where thick smoke is clouding the view.

“Open!” Johnny yells, and before any of them have time to realize it, the bags are being pushed into the truck of the car right before it’s snapped shut.

“Johnny, c’mon!” Taeyong screams back, tugging forcefully on his wrist until they’re both throwing themselves into the back seat of the black car, tinted windows keeping from view the way they fall on top of each other, panting for breath as they struggle to take off his masks.

From the driver’s seat, right as he steps on the gas full-force to start a countdown trip down the Tokyo streets, Mark Lee laughs airily. “Woah, that was _incredible_ , dude! Holy shit!”

“God,” Johnny gasps once Taeyong has rearranged himself on the seat, leaving enough room for him to sit up again, “Alright, at least we can be sure any traces are going to be left. That was a hell lot of fire.”

“That’s why they’re called incendiary bombs,” Taeyong huffs, taking off the bulletproof vest he’d had wrapped tight around his chest. His cheeks are flushed red from effort and heat, his bleached hair disheveled, and Johnny aches for the happy ending to their movie to come already, “Where are we headed to?”

“Port,” Mark says, eyes looking at them through the rearview mirror, “No one’s following this car. I’m on frontier control duty—nobody’s waiting there for you.”

“Cool,” Johnny hums, looking down to find his communicator smashed from where he fell a little bit too harshly with the explosion’s whiplash, “And then?”

“And then you choose, man,” Mark shrugs, “Donghyuck and the rest are heading to Russia for the time being, in case that matters.”

“Of course it matters,” Johnny frowns, “I’m going with them.”

It takes a few seconds of awful silence for Johnny to realize the implications of their hurried escape—the way Taeyong’s spine goes taut with tension, his teeth gritted together as he keeps his eyes fixed on a single point on the back of Mark’s seat.

And for that, Johnny cannot blame him, because it was him that promised Taeyong a new life free from the burden of crime on his shoulders far away from here, and so he owes it to him, despite years of distance, despite endless want; the fulfillment of his promise, peace treaty after the most destructive kind of war for the heart—that of wrongfulness and resentment, mistakes held at gunpoint to the crumbling walls of Johnny’s heart.

“Taeyong,” Johnny speaks then, and he winces at the way his voice sounds worn down with sadness despite the success of their mission, “You’re free to choose, alright? I told you—”

“I know what you told me,” Taeyong is quick to say, eyes looking everywhere but at Johnny as he speaks, “It’s not like I would forget.”

And Johnny’s chest aches with a nameless kind of despair, the one that comes from knowing yourself unworthy of forgiveness after ruining a life, whether they’d ended together or apart. “Okay,” is his simple reply, and he wishes Taeyong would look at him if only to bide him a single goodbye—the one they’ve never got to have, theirs a story with no grand finale. “Just tell Mark and we’ll arrange whatever, I promise you he’s safe and that he’ll ensure you’re never—”

“Oh, so this is it, then?” Taeyong suddenly snaps, and when his eyes meet Johnny’s he sees in them a flame he’d for long believed dead, a glint that tells him there’s more to it than he’s letting on. And Johnny, who navigates danger like the best of sailors and profits on doubt for a job, feels more lost than he ever remembers as he watches Taeyong close his hands into fists before he speaks. “You’re a _liar_.”

“What?” Johnny asks, startled, and the glance Mark throws him over the shoulder is met by a dismissive hand that tells him _please, let me handle this one_ , “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you tell me!” Taeyong rolls his eyes, and his voice is not aggressive as much as it is _teasing_ , the very core of his nature that made Johnny fall for him head first all those years ago, “Remember what you told me before the bomb went off?”

“Huh?” Johnny blinks, and the slowly curving shape of Taeyong’s lips is what tells him not everything might have been lost after all, “I said many things! We were kinda robbing a whole lot of art, but I never said I wouldn’t—”

“You told me you loved me,” Taeyong shuts him up, and it feels both like taking a dagger to the liver and a warm bath in the coldest winter day—destructive of his every belief and healing of his every wound, yet uncertain like their very own lives, where the next step is always followed by a bright red question mark, “And that you wouldn’t know what to do if you lost me again, and you know _damn well_ I believe in this stupid project of yours with all I have or else I wouldn’t be here, yet now you’re thinking about leaving me alone in a port?”

“I’m,” Johnny’s sure his mouth is gaping, yet he cannot bring himself to regain control of his movements, “I, I’d, never, _not alone_ , just—what do you mean, Yong, you can’t just—”

“God, you’re so fucking thick,” Taeyong groans, undoing his seatbelt much to Mark’s dismay. The voicing of his concern gets a middle finger to the face in return, and then, before Johnny has time to understand just what the _hell_ is happening, Taeyong is climbing on his lap and pressing the harshest, most wet and heartfelt kiss he could have ever mustered to his lips like a seal; like a claiming, _it was me who conquered this land before any of you could ever think of laying on him a hand_ , and Johnny revels in it and simply holds him closer, closer, until he almost forgets who they are and where they’re going, the threat still looming over their heads, the way Mark Lee looks about ready to crash the car with them all inside.

“Dude, you’re fucking gross, I’m right here!” Mark whines. Taeyong’s lips form a smile against Johnny’s and suddenly they’re both bursting out in laughter, Johnny’s arms tight around Taeyong’s waist as he holds him against his body, feeling the soft vibration of his chest against his own.

And it all, despite the scratches on their faces from the debris that flew their way during the explosion and the smell of burnt that’s stuck to their skin, feels like home in a way Johnny never wants to lose.

“Does that mean—” Johnny asks softly against the curve of Taeyong’s jaw, nosing his way over his cheek to leave there another kiss— “That you’re staying with us?”

“Doyoung wanted to get rid of me so bad it made him look stupid,” Taeyong snorts, “but I believe he’s changed his mind by now, so, yeah. I might stay.”

“So now Doyoung’s the leader? What happened to me?” Johnny chuckles, his hands giving Taeyong’s waist a gentle squeeze.

“He’s always been the leader, idiot. You’re just the loser with the big ideas and the nice muscles,” Taeyong grins, then pulls away to look into Johnny’s eyes, seriousness washing over his face yet once again, “You know, before we dive into any topics that are certainly not adequate for right now—I want to tell you that we have so many things to talk about before ‘fixing’ anything or whatever. I haven’t forgotten everything just because you spared me from a life stuck in prison.”

“I know,” Johnny nods, and he still smiles as he reaches over to hold Taeyong’s hand with his own, thumb caressing its back as he tells him, “I simply owed that much to you, you know, for that night in my room.”

“Good,” Taeyong hums, but his expression mirrors Johnny before he leans forward until his nose bumps Johnny’s, “Then let’s start with a trip to Russia, and then we’ll see how it goes.”

“That’s right,” Johnny grins, and his lips brush Taeyong’s as they shape out the words, “Second chances are still our thing, aren’t they?”

And Taeyong simply kisses him, but it’s good enough of a reply.

The Russian winter awaits for them—but Johnny is no longer afraid of the cold, for his family is finally complete, his life-plan closer than ever to completion, and the love of his life; he’s just returned home.

***

####  Grand Seoul Gallery Public Opening

_We welcome everyone to the inauguration of the new free-entry art gallery in downtown Seoul, where everyone is invited to come and witness for the first time in history some of the most beautiful treasures hidden for years all over the world._  
_Do not hesitate to enter, and stay tuned to your favorite news outlet for further updates on our collection!_  
_Enjoy the art, enjoy yourselves, and do learn to share—for it is the world’s nicest reward to us._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so so so much for reading! it makes me so happy that you spend a little time of your day reading this work (ꈍᴗꈍ)♡ please leave kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed this story, and you can find me on [twt](https://twitter.com/hanniecuqui) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/peekatom) <3.


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